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EX LIBRIS

Cooper Union Museum
for the Arts of Decoration

GIVEN BY

WSS SU5AAI 0. BUSS

MARCH 1330

This series of Scandinavian Monographs is published
by the American-Scandinavian Foundation to promote
the study of Scandinavian history and culture, in the
belief that true knowledge of the North will contrib-
ute to the common profit on both sides of the Atlantic

SCANDINAVIAN MONOGRAPHS
VOLUME V

SCANDINAVIAN ART

THIS VOLUME IS ENDOWED

BY MR. C. HENRY SMITH

OF SAN FRANCISCO

Midsummer Night at Riddarholmen, by Eugen Jansson
Owned by Thorsten Laurin, Stockholm

Scandinavian Art

ILLUSTRATED

CARL LAURIN

EMIL HANNOVER

JENS THUS

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
CHRISTIAN BRINTON

NEW YORK

THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1922

C. S. PETERSON, THE REGAN PRINTING HOUSE, CHICAGO, U. S. A.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

For this, the first comprehensive treatment of Scandinavian art in
any language, the American-Scandinavian Foundation is fundamentally
indebted to Mr. C. Henry Smith, of San Francisco, whose munificent
gift provided for the completed manuscripts and the engravings. The
volume has been the labor of several years on the part of the eminent
authors, the translators, and editors. The survey of Swedish art has
been written by Carl G. Laurin, author of Konsthistoria, Sweden
Through the Artist's Eye, etc. The account of Danish art in the
nineteenth century is by Emil Hannover, Director of the Danish
Museum of Industrial Art. The development of modern Norwegian
art has been traced by Jens Thiis, Director of the National Gal-
lery in Christiania. The appearance of the work has been some-
what delayed because of the illness of Mr. Thiis, who was prevented
from revising the last part of his manuscript. One of the trans-
lators, Mr. Frederic Schenck, of Harvard University, who rendered
the Danish section into English, did not live to see his work in press.
The Swedish section has been translated by Adolph Burnett Ben-
son, assistant professor of Scandinavian at Yale University, and the
Norwegian manuscript by Sigurd Bernhard Hustvedt, assistant pro-
fessor of English at the University of California, Southern Branch.
The Swedish plates have been engraved by P. A. Norstedt och Soner
of Stockholm, the Danish and Norwegian plates by the Photochrome
Engraving Company of New York. The task of collating the manu-
scripts, editing the translations, and placing the illustrations, as well
as proof-reading, has been executed by Hanna Astrup Larsen, editor
of the American-Scandinavian Review. Throughout the prepara-
tion of the book the Committee on Publications consulted Dr. Chris-
tian Brinton, the well known art critic, who will be remembered in
this connection especially for his various essays on Scandinavian art and
for his catalogue of the Scandinavian Exhibition of 1912-1913.

The Committee on Publications.

i05\

\o V>

CONTENTS

Introduction 1 1

A Survey of Swedish Art

I. The Ecclesiastical Period 37

II. The Castles of the Vasas. After the Thirty Years'

War 58

III. The Carolinian Age. The Royal Palace 73

IV. French and English Influences in the Gustavian Age 87
V. Sergei 106

VI. The Transition Period 114

VII. The Diisseldorf Influence. The Historical Painters 128
VIII. The Opponents. New Tendencies in Swedish

Painting 151

IX. New Tendencies in Swedish Painting (Continued) 185

X. Modern Plastic and Decorative Art 207

XL Architecture at the Opening of the Twentieth Cen-
tury 223

Danish Art in the Nineteenth Century

I. The Period Before Eckersberg 241

II. Eckersberg 247

III. Eckersberg's School 255

IV. Marstrand 270

V. The Europeans 280

VI. The Nationalists 293

VII. The Coloristic Awakening 315

VIII. The Quest of Style and Recent Tendencies 359

IX. Sculpture 393

X. Architecture 420

Modern Norwegian Art

I. The Nineteenth Century Pioneers, Dahl and

Fearnley 437

II. Tidemand and Gude. Diisseldorf Technique and

Norwegian Subjects 454

III. The Munich School 484

IV. The Beginning of French Influence 497

V. The Naturalists : Thaulow, Krohg, and Weren-

skiold. Gerhard Munthe 507

VI. Other Painters of the Seventies and Eighties.... 542

VII. The Intermediate Generation 560

VIII. Munch 580

IX. The Present Generation of Painters 592

X. Sculpture in the Nineteenth Century 613

INTRODUCTION

CHRISTIAN BRINTON, M.A., Litt. D.

INTRODUCTION

By Christian Brinton

WHILE it may appear extraneous to apply to aes-jf
thetic considerations the rigid determinism exempli-
fied by Hippolyte Taine, yet it is obvious that a
knowledge of the land and its people is essential to a proper
understanding of the art of a given country. You cannot ap-
preciate the significance of the Italian Primitives unless you
know something of the serene beauty of the Tuscan or Um-
brian hillside as seen in the conventionalized backgrounds of
the early masters. And similarly you will fail to grasp the
spirit of Northern painting if you are not in some degree fa-
miliar with the conformation of the country and the composi-
tion of the light that slants obliquely upon shimmering fjord
or sparse upland pasture. There can be no question concern-
ing the fundamental differences between the art of the
North and the art of the South. The one is septentrional,
the other meridional, with all the distinction implies,
and it should be apparent to any observant person that these }
divergences are in large part due to circumstances of race, '
clime, and climate.

Granted a specific ethnic heritage and a special natural
environment, it is interesting to note how certain nations
react to their surroundings. The art of the Italians, follow-
ing that of the Greeks, is formal and balanced. It reveals
a regard for proportion, a genius for co-ordination, not seen
elsewhere in the pageant of pictorial expression. Italian
painting is not primarily a record of external observation,
of nature found ready at hand. Its spirit is philosophic. It

12 SCANDINAVIAN ART

is deeply imbued with thought and reason. Little windows
scrupulously spaced look out upon vistas where everything
is held in equilibrium, upon a miniature universe subjected
to an inner sense of symmetry. There is in Italian painting,
from the fresh-tinted frescoes of Giotto to the flowing har-
monies of Tiepolo, no marked departure from this essential
principle. And while color plays an important role in these
compositions, notably in the work of the Venetians, it
rarely attains ascendency over line and form.

That which, without risk of misapprehension, may be
termed the scholastic element in Italian art assumes, with
the work of the Frenchmen, a more scientific application.
.The chief contribution made by latter-day France to the art
of painting has been the development of the theory and prac-
tice of what is known as impressionism. While there have
been reactions against impressionism, they have proved noth-
ing more than tributes to a method without which modern art
could scarcely have come into existence. The entire pan-
orama of contemporary landscape painting bases itself upon
impressionism. We no longer, as with the Italians, gaze
through narrow little panels upon a remote, ordered world.
We are at last out of doors flooded with sunshine. We were
brought there by means of the patient analysis of light and
the application of certain definite scientific principles to the
problem of atmospheric painting.

If the art of the Italians is philosophic, and that of the
Frenchmen, especially Manet, Monet, and their successors,
illumined by scientific clairvoyance, it is but reasonable to
infer that the work of the Scandinavians should betray
characteristics equally distinctive. The inhabitants of the
Northern peninsula, cut off from the main current of Con-
tinental cultural development, and living in close community
with nature, have evolved an aesthetic expression that may
be termed indigenous. In painting, sculpture, and archi-
tecture similar conditions have produced similar results.
While it is manifest that the art of Sweden, Denmark, and
Norway is by no means identical, it nevertheless shares cer-
tain specific affiliations. The differences are those of degree,

INTRODUCTION 13

not of kind. This art is an expression that foreigners in-
stantly recognize as septentrional.

Scholastic with the Italian, scientific with the Frenchman,
aesthetic utterance with the Scandinavians displays a lyric
quality such as one encounters in the art of no other country.
In its finer essence the pictorial production of the Northern
peoples is lyrical. These paintings are songs in color, these
artists poets in line and tone. That this should be the case
there need be scant wonder, for here again have certain
causes produced their appointed results. / Determinism in
matters artistic is in fact as firmly established as is determin-
ism in the field of physiology or psychology^

The farther one journeys from Greece and Rome, the
less is one enslaved by the fetish of form, by that academic
tyranny which is the enemy of individual expression. The
relative remoteness of the Scandinavian artist from such
sources of enervation has proved his salvation. j_ Living
alone or in more or less isolated surroundings, there has
sprung up between the Northern painter and his environ-
ment a kind of pregnant intimacy. He has been compelled
to seek inspiration in his feelings and fancies, his reactions
to nature and natural scene. And the particular character
of the scenes with which he is most familiar constitutes not
the least of those silent yet eloquent forces that have condi-
tioned his aesthetic consciousness. Serenity and precision
may flourish in the South, among the luminous isles of the
.^gean or along the shores of the Mediterranean, but the
North is the home of mystery, of poetic suggestion, and that
psychic restlessness which you encounter alike on the can-
vases of Edvard Munch or in the pages of August Strindberg.
The exalted, at times frenzied, struggle for freedom which
confronts you in the work of these men amounts indeed to a
phase of eleutheromania.

The first thing that impresses the student of Scandinavian
art is the infrequency with which one meets representations
of the human figure. Man is here not the center of interest
as is the case with the Greeks and Latins. It is nature and
natural phenomena that hold the place of honor. The art

14 SCANDINAVIAN ART

of the North is a chaste art. It betrays an impersonality, a
cosmic anonymity far removed from the petty or trivial.
Deriving its stimulus from direct contact with the out of
doors, it dedicates its energies to a species of pantheistic
nature worship. The deity which presides over Northern
art is not fashioned in the image of humanity. It is com-
pounded of that elemental rhythm which models the surface
of the earth, tints the far reaches of the sky, ruffles the waves,
and stirs the foliage of birch or pine.

That the language of this art may possess general appeal,
that it may attain that universality of application with
which the nations of the South have endowed their concep-
tion of the human form has been the aim, conscious or uncon-
scious, of the Northern artist. In the following pages you
will be enabled to judge how far this result has been
achieved. Whatever the verdict, there is one fact that
stands plainly forth, namely, the fact that the Scandinavian
artist, once he finds himself, seldom lacks the tenacity to be
national in theme and treatment. "Forward and home,"
was the inspiring slogan of that courageous coterie which in
the middle eighties of the last century forsook Munich and
Paris to return to the Northland, and happily, "forward and
home" has since been their watchword.

The picture of Scandinavian art you will gather from the
ensuing pages is a threefold presentment. You have here-
with unveiled before you the artistic features of Sweden,
Denmark, and Norway. Each section has been traced by a
practised hand. While the touch varies a trifle, the result
will not fail to fuse itself into a composite portrait of the
aesthetic physiognomy of the Scandinavian people. It is but
natural that the art of painting should receive major con-
sideration. Aside from certain monuments of historical inter-
est, architecture is comparatively new in the North, and sculp-
ture is not as yet widely cultivated. The art of Scandinavia
is coloristic. While it took these fresh-visioned Northern-
ers some time to outgrow the sombre tonality of museum and
gallery, they eventually recaptured their rightful heritage
of clear, tonic color and high-keyed harmony. It was indeed

INTRODUCTION 15

not for naught that they enjoyed in France the distinction
of being known as la belle ecole blonde.

The story of Swedish art as outlined by Mr. Carl G.
Laurin forms a full-length portrait. The background is
amply filled in, and none of the important accents is missing.
Protected by the Court and patronized by the nobility, the
artistic taste of Sweden was from the beginning eclectic.
Brilliant, responsive, and full of rapidly assimilated impres-
sions from the outside world, Swedish painting of the
eighteenth century is replete with the artificial grace of the
reign of rococo. Names such as Gustav Lundberg, Alex-
ander Roslin, Nils Lafrensen the younger, and Peter Adolf
Hall were less known in Stockholm than in Paris, where they
contributed their quota to the delicate yet imperishable
bloom of a deathless age. While there was sounder stuff
in their predecessor, the Hamburg-born David Ehrenstrahl,
they typify the auspicious inception of an art that has always
appealed to the aristocratic classes, and which has been prac-
tised with distinction by more than one representative of
the royal family.

The baroque pomposity of Ehrenstrahl and the rococo
radiance of Lundberg and his associates were succeeded by
the pseudo-classicism which dates from the French Revolu-
tion, and by the extravagant though sincere nature worship
of which Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the fervid apostle.
Wertmuller's Danae, in the National Museum, and the
poetic landscapes of Elias Martin, revealing manifest traces
of the influence of Gainsborough and the English elegiac
school, are indicative of the tendencies of the period. The
English affiliation established by Martin was strengthened
by Karl Fredrik von Breda, who studied with Reynolds.
Breda returned to Stockholm with a richer tonality, a more
expressive line, and an emotional warmth that foreshadow
the dawn of romanticism. His likenesses of the prominent
personages of the day furthermore possess a sense of style
and a talent for character delineation that entitle them to
high rank in the category of Peninsular portraiture.

Strange as it may seem, the one outstanding figure in the

16 SCANDINAVIAN ART

eighteenth and early nineteenth century art of Sweden was
not a painter, but the sculptor Johan Tobias Sergei. Swedish
painting has in fact not yet produced its Sergei. The model-
ler of the Faun, in the National Museum, was a man of ex-
traordinary endowment and rare force of character. Too
robust a soul to succumb to the emasculated classicism of the
day, he worked out his artistic destiny in typically independ-
ent fashion. Older than Canova or Thorvaldsen, he never-
theless remained younger in spirit, in vision, and in his
veracious rendering of form during a period when plastic
expression was notably deficient in vigor and sincerity.

Midway between the older and newer schools lingers the
refined, mobile silhouette of Egron Lundgren, the Swedish
Constantin Guys, who like Guys, was attracted by English
life, social and military, and who did some of his best work
while in the British capital. Lundgren was a cosmopolitan
product. With his responsive line and delicate eye for color,
he was a posthumous child of the age of rococo. When the
rest of the world was turning to historical subject, drab peas-
ant theme, or landscape darkened by heavy shadows from
the venerable Fontainebleau oaks, Lundgren's vision
remained vivacious and contemporary. He possessed the
true aristocratic instinct for style, and nothing in Swedish art
compares in grace and sensitive charm with these spirited
water-color sketches.

While Egron Lundgren was transcribing with sparkling
verity the pageant of mid-century life in London or Luck-
now, in Paris or Madrid, the balance of Sweden was, as has
been intimated, engaged in the sober task of creating a
national school of art. The vogue of frigid neo-classicist
and false romanticist was succeeded by the genuine outdoor
sentiment of such pioneer landscape painters as Edvard
Bergh and Alfred Wahlberg. The reposeful vision of the
nature intimists was supplemented by the story-telling genre
of August Jernberg and Ferdinand Fagerlin, and the earnest
attempt to translate native myth and fable into paint was
exemplified in the canvases of Blommer and Malmstrom.
The most imposing talent of the day was, however, Johan

INTRODUCTION 17

Fredrik Hockert. Though imbued with the treacle tonality
of the romanticists, Hockert managed to express himself with
vigor and conviction. His large, effective canvas entitled
The Palace Fire, 1697, is an epoch-making work in the
history of Northern art.

The foregoing men constitute certain important high-
lights in a general survey of Swedish painting. For its defin-
ite sequence you have the discriminating exposition of Mr.
Laurin, who follows its progress from its brilliant, sporadic
beginnings to the substantial achievement of the contem- «
porary school. Pit is only within the present generation that
Swedish art halTcome into its ownj With the return from
France, from Paris, and from Grez, of the intrepid band
who resolutely opposed the Academy, and the formation, ini
1886, of the society known as the Konstnarsforbundet,
Swedish art assumes its rightful position in the forward
march of European taste. The influence of Diisseldorf,
which had been superseded by that of Munich and Paris,
gave place to a passionate love of native scene and char-
acter, and a determination to become national alike in theme
and treatment. With eyes for the first time open to the
beauty of the homeland, and a technique fortified by famil-
iarity with the message of latter-day naturalism and impres-
sionism, the Swedish painter was not long in giving proof of
his new-found power.

In the vanguard of the modern movement looms Ernst
Josephson, equipped with a masterly breadth of draughts-
manship and a Manet-like faculty of placing the figure upon
canvas. By the side of Josephson stands the dextrous, cos-
mopolitan Anders Zorn, who brings to the altar of art every
gift save the gift of soul. And along with Zorn come Lars-
son and Liljefors, names familiar to lovers of Swedish art
the world over. The preceding men are transitional figures,
whereas with the rigorous Nordstrom, the sober-minded
Wilhelmson, and notably with Hesselbom, Fjasstad, Kreu-
ger, Prince Eugen, and Eugen Jansson we are confronted
with tendencies more stylistic than naturalistic or impres-
sionistic. The art of these painters and their younger col-

18 SCANDINAVIAN ART

leagues, such as Axel Torneman, is subjective and synthetic
in spirit. It is not representation they seek but decoration,
and their work is notable for its vigor of outline and appro-
priate employment of color spaces. Beginning as modest
lyrists, they have managed to endow their creations with
monumental significance.

The contribution of this particular group, which is the
most homogeneous unit in contemporary Swedish art, brings
us to the debatable threshold of expressionism, which has
already been crossed by Isaac Griinewald, Gosta Sandels,
Einar John, Leander Engstrom, and kindred apostles of out
and out modernism. The older men belong to a definite
school, the men of the middle period participated in certain
well defined movements, but these latest recruits to the cause
give free range to a luxuriant individualism. The extreme
manifestations of their art will doubtless, however, be modi-
fied by the benign caress of time, for there is nothing
like time to ameloriate the rigors of radicalism whether
aesthetic or social.

The leading charactertistic of this work, be it conservative
or experimental, is its sense of nationalism, its fidelity to
native theme. Each of these artists has his favorite sketch-
ing ground which he makes indisputably his own, Liljefors
finds inspiration in the forest life of Uppland or among the
skerries of the Smaland coast. Nordstrom evolves an aus-
tere, stone-age mysticism out of the iron mountain ranges
of Lapland and the shadowed hillsides of Bohuslan, while
upon the blue waters of Stockholm harbor, fringed with its
crescent of amber lights, Eugen Jansson breathes a luminous
lyricism that for sheer poetic intensity is without parallel in
the annals of contemporary painting. Nor is all modern
Swedish art serious-minded, for with the drawings of Albert
Engstrom, the characterful statuettes of "Doderhultaren,"
and the diverting evocations of Ossian Elgstrom and John
Bauer we are led into a world where actuality gives place to
humorous exaggeration or the touch of creative fantasy.

Whether in the stillness of snow-crusted forest with
Fjaestad and Schultzberg, among the Lofoten Islands with

INTRODUCTION 19

Anna Boberg, or on the terrace of Prince Eugen's villa at
Valdemarsudde, you instinctively feel that each of these
painters approaches his theme with sincerity and conviction.
The particular is here not infrequently infused with a sig-
nificance that is general, and that which was local becomes
typical. With the clarification of the modern palette Swed-
ish painting has taken on fresh chromatic brilliancy. This
art is more Swedish than was formerly the case. The
national race consciousness has grown stronger and more
eloquent alike of the outward vesture of nature and of that
inner vision which fashions all things to its appointed
purpose.

It is unnecessary in any degree to anticipate the able
exposition of Mr. Laurin. His account of the development
of Swedish architecture from the ecclesiastical period to the
latest creations of Ferdinand Boberg, Gustav Clason, Rag-
nar Ostberg, Carl Westman, and others is notably instruc-
tive. His survey of Swedish plastic art, which carries us
from the Giant Finn of Lund Cathedral to the neo-renais-
sance yet modernistic compositions of Christian Eriksson
and the varied inspiration of Carl Milles, is of equal merit
and interest. You gather in fact from Mr. Laurin's text a
general impression of flexibility and creative fecundity that
augurs well for the future of Swedish art.

It may not be amiss to note by way of recapitulation,
that art in Sweden did not long remain the exclusive property
of the upper classes. It was not restricted to park and pal-
ace, to the aristocratic confines of Gripsholm or Drottning-
holm, but, reinforced by a basic peasant virility, it became a
thing of the people and for the people. Carrying its bright-
ness into cottage and home, bearing its message from Malmo
to far off Kiruna beyond the arctic circle, it chants the vis-
ible glory of Svea. At first a plaything and apanage of roy-
alty and a powerful ring of nobles — of the Hedvig Eleon-
oras and Axel Oxenstiernas of Swedish history — it finally
won universal suffrage.

20 SCANDINAVIAN ART

There could be no stronger contrast than that afforded
by a comparison between the art of eclectic, cosmopolitan
Sweden and the home-loving production of the Dane. If
the art of Sweden is extensive, that of Denmark represents
an intensive development in close conformity with the polit-
ical and social traditions of the country. The lyric quality
already noted in the art of Sweden is also present in that of
Denmark, only it is not a poignant cry of passion or disillu-
sion. It more often takes the form of gentle mysticism or
the simple charm of a fireside lullaby. Just as you find in
Danish literature no Verner von Heidenstam or no Oscar
Levertin, so you encounter in contemporary Danish painting
no Eugen Jansson or no Karl Nordstrom, the integrity of
whose vision is tinged by a deep-seated pessimism, a touch of
cosmic austerity.

As you turn to Director Hannover's sympathetic presen-
tation of Danish art you will not fail to gain an impression
of homogeneous development. Danish art is indigenous.
The treasures of early Danish painting and sculpture did
not arrive in stately fashion from foreign lands as was the
case with Gustav Ill's collection of statuary. They sprang
from the happy hearts and healthy sensibilities of a people
who had no restless visions of grandeur and world conquest,
a people fervently attached to their serene little country.
The Danes are addicted to an amused scepticism when it
comes to matters beyond their immediate range of sympathy.
The tendency was manifest at an early stage of their cultural
development, and it has doubtless served to protect them
from follies and exaggerations in various fields of activity.

Yet it must not be assumed that Danish art attained
maturity without assistance from the outside world. Den-
mark, like Sweden, sent abroad, chiefly to France, for her
first architects and sculptors, while not a few of her painters
journeyed to Rome or elsewhere in order to acquire that
broader experience which was deemed essential to a proper
practice of their profession. The fact nevertheless remains
that these digressions did not materially alter the course of

INTRODUCTION 21

Danish art. As Director Hannover observes, there was no
genuinely Danish painting before Eckersberg, and Eckers-
berg himself had the sagacity not to be adversely influenced
either by David in Paris or the specious neo-antique espoused
by his countryman Thorvaldsen in Rome. Saving Pilo and
Carstens but few of these men renounced their national
affiliations. And as you study Constantin Hansen's portrait
group depicting seven leading Danish artists, all former
pupils of Eckersberg, foregathered in Hansen's Roman
studio, you spontaneously assume that they are thinking and
speaking of that endearing country to which they were
shortly to return and whose more familiar aspects they were
destined to celebrate.

Their preceptor, Christoffer Vilhelm Eckersberg, called
the father of Danish painting, just as the Hamburger Ehren-
strahl was known as the father of Swedish painting, and the
Norwegian, Johan Christian Dahl, was later to become
recognized as the parent of Norwegian painting, was a re-
markably endowed artist. Temporarily interested in Italian
subject, he found his true sphere of activity in depicting local
theme — landscape, marines, and views of ships and shipping
in the vicinity of Copenhagen. His gallery of portraits, in-
cluding that of Thorvaldsen in the Kunstakademiet, is also
of particular importance. Everything he left in fact pos-
sesses a tranquil verity of vision and statement that no
change of taste can ever discount.

You do not need, in a preliminary survey of early nine-
teenth century Danish painting, to go beyond the three
typical figures of Eckersberg, Kobke, and Marstrand. Each
in his way reflects a distinct phase of the national temper-
ament, and between them they offer a complete picture of
native life and scene. At a period when the rest of Europe
was absorbed in the cultivation of a passionless pseudo-
classicism, the clear-eyed professor who dwelt in modest
quarters at the Academy in Kongens Nytorv was content
to transcribe reality with patient exactitude. It was upon a
foundation of substantial objectivity that he based the struc-
ture of modern Danish art. Following him comes Christen

22 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Schjellerup Kobke, who supplemented the constrained vision
and handling of the older men with a fresh, sunlit beauty, a'
brighter tonality, and a freer technique. The figure, not
landscape, was Marstrand's preoccupation, and he in turn
discarded the arid formalism of Abildgaard and Jens Juel
and brought to Danish painting a humor, a grasp of char-
acter, and a breadth of style that proved an infinite boon
to the art of the day.

The successive steps in the evolution of Danish painting
from the constriction of its early stages to the freedom of its
new-found worship of light, color, and form are too com-
prehensively indicated by Director Hannover to require
more than passing mention. Following the eclipse of clas-
sicism and the tinsel romanticism of the Diisseldorf period,
came the ringing appeal to the nationalist consciousness
enunciated by Hoyen, whose propensity for aesthetic preach-
ment even rivalled that of Ruskin. This movement, which
paved the way for Dalsgaard, Exner, Vermehren and similar
exponents of peasant genre, failed to achieve significant re-
sults for the reason that its devotees were lacking in technical
proficiency. It was, in fact, not until the advent of the Paris
trained talents that Danish painting was able to overcome
that professional provinciality which had been its handicap
from the outset

If the school of Eckersberg taught the Danish artist what
to paint, it was the school of Skagen that taught him how to
paint. Naturalistic at first, and by turns impressionistic and
luministic, it was the flexible, acquisitive Peter Severin
Kroyer who was the inspiration of the little colony of artists
who set up their easels along the sunlit dunes of the Skaw
and for the first time let into Danish painting the magic of
light and air. More potent as an influence than as an endur-
ing master, Kroyer, with his cosmopolitan cachet and
dazzling manipulative dexterity, was the dynamic force of
the movement. Whether in his vine-screened cottage at
Skagen or in his sumptuously appointed studio in Bredgade,
where used to take place those memorable evening musicales,
he was always to the fore. Red-faced and white flanneled,

INTRODUCTION 23

he acted as the beacon, the Skagen Fyr, of the group, and
once he pointed the way, the rest proceeded to flood Danish
art, indoor as well as out, with the same tonic radiance.

A few paces from Kroyer's studio in Bredgade came to
live a man of different stamp, not a versatile talent, eager to
attack any pictorial problem, but a modest, retiring soul who
shrank from the glare of day, who preferred the dimness of
sparely furnished rooms or the mystic film of twilight on
grey-green roof or dark castle wall. In Vilhelm Hammers-
hoi Denmark produced an apostle of aesthetic quietism
beside whom even Whistler seems restless and sophisticated.
A product of neurasthenia this tremulous, penetrant work
may be, yet it bids fair to survive the legacy of many a more
emphatic talent. Along with Hammershoi should be men-
tioned Ejnar Nielsen, whose severe, achromatic vision,
somewhat indebted to the Italian Primitives and the pallid
serenity of Puvis de Chavannes, possesses a lineal purity and
a tonal restraint that lend it unique significance.

The subdued, crepuscular panels of Vilhelm Hammers-
hoi, and the not infrequently pathological inspiration of
Ejnar Nielsen, constitute an intermezzo in the forward
progress of Danish painting, which, having acquired light
through the efforts of Kroyer, next proceeded to add color
through the chromatic opulence of Zahrtmann, and form
through the vigorous plasticity of Willumsen. One of the
most original figures in Danish art, and the possessor of a
richly subjective color sense, Kristian Zahrtmann is also
notable as a helpful and inspiring preceptor. Zahrtmann's
Skole which has fostered such genuine talents as Johannes
Larsen, Peter Hansen, and Fritz Syberg, has exercised a
fruitful influence upon current Danish and also Norwegian
painting. It has taught the lesson of nationalism through
the development of a more conscious sense of individuality
and a more definitely localized sphere of interest.

In the matter of individuality there is, however, no figure
in Danish art whether in painting, sculpture, architecture, or
decorative craftsmanship comparable with Jens Ferdinand
Willumsen. The entire struggle for freedom from conven-

24 SCANDINAVIAN ART

tion and from the stupifying effect of academic somnolence
centers in the fecund personality of Willumsen. Everything
Willumsen touches acquires the precious boon of life and
form. A protean genius, he has attacked in succession all
phases of current artistic activity. Nor has he failed to
leave his impress whether it be upon the starkly simplified
facade of the Frie Udstilling building or a bit of polychrome
pottery. Combative as well as creative, Willumsen waged a
valiant battle for aesthetic liberty, and it is mainly through
his efforts that the younger men of to-day owe their compar-
ative immunity at the hands of a none too reverent public.

The recent developments of contemporary Danish art
synchronize with similar manifestations in Sweden and Nor-
way. The movement has been away from naturalism and
impressionism and in the direction of decorative synthesis.
The amazing fertility of the late Thorvald Bindesboll, the
Danish William Morris, and the pre-Raphaelite inspiration
of the brothers Skovgaard have aided in the fostering of a
new group. A richer tonality, a more opulent feeling for
mass, and a frank desire to combine beauty and utility are
among the chief characteristics of the younger generation
of painters, sculptors, architects, and designers. A species
of new romanticism, an awakening to the subjective and
stylistic possibilities "bi color and form has superceded the
objectivity of the older men.

Danish art of to-day has gone a long way from the simple
verity of Eckersberg and Kobke, and the patient observation
of Lauritz Ring, who still resides in his flower-fronted cot-
tage at Roskilde, a picturesque reminder of the past. Con-
temporary Danish painting even possesses its expressionists
and synchronists — some designate them as dysmorphists —
who periodically enliven the exhibitions of Den Frie and the
newer secessionist organization known as Gronningen. Yet
despite its advanced pretentions the work of such men as
Harald Giersing, Edvard Weie, Sigurd Swane, Aksel Jor-
gensen, William Scharff and their colleagues remains essen-
tially Danish. It is Danish just as the art of Willumsen, the
aesthetic anarch of a decade or more ago, was reluctantly

INTRODUCTION 25

acknowledged to be Danish. That which indeed we first note
in the production of these innovators are the departures
from precedent, the exaggerations. On subsequent acquaint-
ance we perceive that the difference between them and their
predecessors has been all too slight.

It is the art briefly outlined in the foregoing paragraphs,
together with the architecture of Martin Nyrop, H. B.
Storck, and Hans Holm, and the sculpture of Willumsen,
Freund, Hansen-Jacobsen, Kai Nielsen, and the Iceland-
born Einar Jonsson, that reflect the present-day character of
Danish aesthetic development. The illuminating presenta-
tion of the subject by Director Hannover is so comprehen-
sive that it merely remains to summarize one's general im-
pressions. Danish art, like the Danish landscape or Dan-
ish literature, possesses the faculty of not striving to trans-
cend certain definite limitations. Dramatic intensity is
absent. Yet while it is true that Danish letters boasts no
Strindberg, no von Heidenstam, and no Levertin, it may well
claim its Herman Bang or Jacobsen whose work, suffused
with tender mysticism and lightened by flashes of humor, is
typical of the modern Danish spirit.

And so it is in painting. When Kobke depicts a boat-
landing party with the Dannebrog fluttering on the fresh
morning breeze, when Lundbye paints a wide-horizoned
stretch of his beloved Sjaslland, when Kyhn devotes himself
to views of Jutland, or Skovgaard senior masses in monu-
mental forms the beeches of Dyrehaven, we have something
exclusively Danish. The same is true of Ring, Syberg, and
Philipsen in their records of rural life and scene, nor is it
otherwise with Julius Paulsen in his delicate landscape noc-
turnes or Viggo Johansen in his particular province, for
who has pictured the intimacies of domestic existence with
more sympathetic insight than Johansen. There is no pre-
tense here. It is all consistent and contained. We are far
from the Salon machine concocted to astound a jaded
public.

Danish art of to-day, having overcome certain early disa-
bilities, reflects a wholesome equability of temper and a gen-

26 SCANDINAVIAN ART

erous measure of material well-being. This art is rich in
tone and texture and discreetly sensuous in spirit. The splen-
did assembly hall of Martin Nyrop's Raadhus radiates light
and color, while Willumsen's playful putti disport them-
selves with true abandon. Midway between the brilliant
eclecticism and lyric exaltation of Sweden, and the stormy,
ossianesque grandeur of Norway, stands the instinctive
moderation, the natural amenity of Denmark. Having
achieved a definite emotional and social stability, the Dane
can well afford to remain himself, and to smile indulgently
upon a stressful, unquiet world.

Ill

Entering the arena of art at a later date than Swede or
Dane, the Norwegian possessed the priceless assets of
youth, abounding energy, and freedom from precedent that
enabled him to express himself with unhampered vigor and
directness. The first thing that impresses one on viewing a
representative collection of Norwegian painting, sculpture,
or decorative art is its aspect of freshness and general ab-
sence of fatigue. You may note a certain overconfidence, but
you will rarely encounter echoes of empty traditionalism or
a point of view that savors of academic anaemia.

The history of modern Norwegian art covers but a scant
century of consecutive effort, yet within that period the Nor-
wegian painter has nevertheless been able to place himself
on even terms not alone with his Peninsular neighbors, but
fully abreast of the broader currents of Continental artistic
development. The realization that he started later, and
consequently had more to achieve, proved an incentive rather
than a detriment. And in order to diminish all disparity the
Norwegian merely had to draw upon an unexploited wealth
of vitality, aesthetic and physical.

The text of Director Thiis which you will herewith peruse
is a model of constructive exposition. Working in a more
or less virgin field, a field that he himself has largely cre-
ated, Director Thiis is in a position to contribute pioneer
criticism, and of this opportunity he takes full advantage.

INTRODUCTION 27

The profile of the period preceding the declaration of
national independence in 1814 is bound to appear more or
less sketchy on account of the paucity of data at hand, yet
even this relatively remote epoch in the history of Nor-
wegian art has its well defined tendencies and its outstand-
ing personalities. Though for the most part of anonymous
authorship, the early ecclesiastical or secular sculpture, paint-
ing, and handicraftsmanship display characteristics that
were destined to reappear at a subsequent date. New art is
invariably conditioned by latent aesthetic instincts. The
decorative fantasies of Gerhard Munthe are based upon
century-old saga motifs; and it is by no means improbable
that the hypersensitiveness of Edvard Munch, that feeling
of cosmic fear which pervades his work, harks back to the
primal awe of primitive man in the presence of the insolu-
able enigma of nature.

Out of this somewhat dusky half-light emerges the rugged
silhouette of Magnus Berg, a richly endowed craftsman who
passed most of his life in Copenhagen, and left a legacy of
deftly carved ivory groups displaying marked baroque influ-
ence. It is Director Thiis's placing in relief of such figures as
Berg, and rescuing from obscurity such comparatively un-
known men as Mathias Stoltenberg, the provincial Nord-
land portrait painter, and Lars Hertervig, an imaginative
nature mystic who recalls our own Ryder or Blakelock, that
lends his text its particular value. The Gudes and Tide-
mands, like the Thorvaldsens, have been too persistently
exploited. The public deserves to know something of less
conventional types, and no one presents their respective
cases with more authority than the scholarly, militant
Director of the National Gallery of Norway. He is amply
qualified for such a task, having already done much to force
acceptance of Munch and to win proper recognition for the
Norwegian plastic genius Gustav Vigeland.

It is in fact this same militancy of spirit that distinguishes
Norwegian art and letters in general. The leading figures
stand starkly forth as though rough-hewn from the native
rock. And to those given to indulging in symbols, the view

28 SCANDINAVIAN ART

of Dahl's storm-tossed birch tree buffeted by the wind yet
clinging to its stony base may well seem typical of the entire
course of Norwegian art. Cast in heroic mould, these men
have forged their way to the front through sheer power and
persistence. There is not, even to this day, in Norway such
a thing as an academy of art, royal or national, and technical
instruction has necessarily been difficult to obtain. The
pioneers were largely self-taught. Berg was a simple rustic
who began life as a woodcarver. Dahl was the son of a
humble fisherman and ferryman of Bergen. These men
were not protected by kings and nobles as were the Swedes,
nor were they reared amid the security of a solidly estab-
lished social order as were the Danes. Almost without
exception they fought their battles single-handed, and many
of them are still indulging in this same salutary pastime.

Such conditions have not been without effect upon the
development of the arts in Norway. You meet in this work
a degree of individualism not apparent in the production of
Sweden or Denmark. There are of course marked affin-
ities between one artist and another, or one group of artists
and another, yet each man stands firmly upon his own feet.
The art of Norway does not fall into the category of a
sharply defined school, as for example is the case with the
art of Holland or of Denmark. Its progress is uneven. It
does not proceed upon its course with placid uniformity. It
advances intermittently, not to say explosively. There was
something meteor-like in the rapid rise to fame and Euro-
pean position of Johan Christian Dahl, the father of con-
temporary Norwegian painting, and on more than one
occasion the world has been startled by the sudden eruption
of a fresh-born Norwegian genius of letters or art.

When Dahl eventually located in Dresden as professor
of landscape at the Kunstakademie, pallid neo-classicism had
been superseded by a romantic nature poetry and a taste for
theatric peasant genre. While it was impossible even for
this sturdy son of West Coast fisherfolk to escape the pre-
tense of the period, it is to his credit that, during long resi-
dence abroad, he never ceased to remain Norwegian at

INTRODUCTION 29

heart. He did not devote his energies to the portrayal of
moonlit ruins on the Rhine or the fateful Lorelei. Every
summer he journeyed homeward where he passed the time
sketching among the fjords and mountains of his native
land. While his work remained romantic, it never lost con-
tact with reality. It pulsates with dramatic passion, with
genuine bardic power, yet it is based upon actual observa-
tion. And what is true of Dahl is even more true of his suc-
cessor Fearnley, and of the deeply lyrical Cappelen who died
while still in his twenties.

From the outset these men displayed a vigorous intensity
of statement that to this day has remained typical of Nor-
wegian painting. Even the panoramic Gude and the popu-
lar exponent of peasant life, Adolf Tidemand, had their
moments of genuine veracity. And once the specious glam-
our of poetic sentiment had been dispelled, and the Nor-
wegian painter was permitted to see nature in her true
aspect, this faculty came more prominently to the fore. The
older men down to the time of Amaldus Nielsen and Ludvig
Munthe studied in Diisseldorf. The succeeding generation
drifted to Munich and Paris. In due course the pictorial
insincerity of Schirmer and Lessing and the anecdotal inan-
ities of Knaus and Vautier vanished with the increasing
vogue of an art based upon a closer study of nature and a
more accurate comprehension of existing visual phenomena.
Teutonic romanticism gave place to Gallic rationalism, to an
art that endeavored to place the eye upon a parity with the
mind, to supplement sentiment and imagination with first-
hand observation.

Erik Werenskiold was the earliest Norwegian painter to
sense the impending change and adjust himself to the new
order of things. In 1879 ne saw tne memorable French
exhibition in Munich, and straightway wrote to his col-
leagues that the Bavarian capital was dead as an art center.
With ready receptivity he realized that the forward move-
ment pointed away from the studio claptrap of Piloty and
Lofftz toward the sturdy terrestrialism of Gustave Courbet
and the fresh graphic vision of Edouard Manet. His advice

30 SCANDINAVIAN ART

was fortunately followed, and between 1880 and 1883 most
of- the progressive Norwegian painters foregathered in
Paris to admire and emulate the grey-green harmonies of
Cazin, the sober peasant vision of Bastien-Lepage, or the
rude proletarian touch of Roll. Eilif Peterssen, Hans
Heyerdahl, Werenskiold himself, Fredrik Collett, Frits
Thaulow, and Edvard Diriks formed the vanguard of the
new movement. And one by one they returned to their
native country bearing with them the inspiring message that
precipitated a veritable revolution in the province of pic-
torial representation.

The Norwegians espoused the gospel of naturalism in all
sincerity, each pursuing his pathway with independence of
spirit. That same tendency which in Sweden initiated a
school of synthetic landscape interpreters, and in Denmark
fostered a genuine decorative renaissance, aroused in Nor-
way a different set of reactions. In particular it gave birth to
a group afflicted with social and pathological sympathies. In
literature this coterie included Hans Jasger, Arne Garborg,
Gunnar Heiberg, and Knut Hamsun, and in art found its
leading exponents in Christian Krohg and Edvard Munch.
Robust and defiantly objective looms the massive form of
Krohg, while in the shadowland of an acute subjectivity
lingers the solitary, enigmatic apparition of Munch.

Though Krohg, the epic apostle of Zolaism in paint, has
undergone numerous vicissitudes, his militancy of temper
and mental vigor remain unimpaired. Seated in the garden
of his fjord-side home at Drobak, grizzley and primeval, he
seems to epitomize the stressful epoch of which, with pen
as well as brush, he was for years the living incarnation.
The complexion of Norwegian art has altered during the
last decade. Of the actual pioneers several have passed
away. Yet Diriks has not entirely deserted Drobak for
Paris, while upon the pine-crested heights of Lysaker, over-
looking the upper reaches of the Christiania fjord, still reside
Eilif Peterssen, Gerhard Munthe, and Erik Werenskiold
whose talented son Dagfin carries promisingly forward the
paternal tradition.

INTRODUCTION 31

The rigors of naturalism were followed by the delicate
irradiance of impressionism, which in due course was suc-
ceeded by the new romantic spirit of which the late Halfdan
Egedius was the initial exponent. Many of the younger
men, the generation of the nineties, including Erichsen,
Folkestad, Kavli, Onsager, and Wold-Torne received their
professional training in Copenhagen, mainly under Zahrt-
mann, and their work consequently reflects not a little of the
stylistic and coloristic traditions of the contemporary Danish
school. Holmboe, a somewhat older man, is also allied to
the decorative romanticists, while Harald Sohlberg adds to
the main characteristics of the movement a visual restraint
and a concentrated emotional intensity that entitle him to
a place apart from the rest of his colleagues.

In a measure a product of the naturalism of the early
and middle eighties of the past century, and also represent-
ing a sharp reaction against naturalistic tendencies, stands
Edvard Munch, the unchallenged head of the modern
movement in Scandinavian art. The enthusiasm with which
Director Thiis pens his apologia for Munch is by no means
misplaced, though it is safe to say that Munch's position in
European painting and graphic art is not yet adequately
appreciated in his own country. Edvard Munch is a born
pictorial fantast. From the recesses of a responsive con-
sciousness he evokes images plastic and graphic the like of
which cannot be met outside the pages of Poe and Baudelaire
or the portfolios of Felicien Rops and Henri de Toulouse-
Lautrec. The inspiration of Munch is not however South-
ern, it is purely Nordic. You may possibly recall the Berlin
of the early nineties on viewing some of the initial graphic
studies, but never the Boulevards. The significance of this
art lies in its affinity, its power of identification, with the vis-
ible universe. In these broadly brushed canvases and strongly
accented lithographs we are made to wander by dark waters,
under pale, far stars and over mountains toward the rim
of the world where we stand transfixed with tragic appre-
hension.

It is part of Munch's deep-rooted pessimism that in his

32 SCANDINAVIAN ART

work he should reduce the human equation to minor propor-
tions when brought face to face with the inscrutable physi-
ognomy of nature. Alike in his paintings, mural decora-
tions, or in the field of graphic expression Edvard Munch
remains the commanding figure in Northern art. He is the
apotheosis of that tendency which is farthest removed
from the fixed form of the Greeks and Latins. The potency
of this art lies not in its capacity for definite realization but
in its magic power of suggestion. We have here moved
beyond the radiance of the meridional sun into sub-arctic
twilight where fantasy wins its silent, almost imperceptible
victory over fact.

Under the aegis of Edvard Munch have sprung into con-
sciousness a number of artists more or less directly influ-
enced by him, though revealing the approved Norwegian
capacity for independent expression. They share his free-
dom from the tyranny of form, his suggestive coloration,
and his sympathy with the modern movement whether in
Scandinavia or on the Continent. Of this group Henrik
Lund and Ludvig Karsten are the most prominent repre-
sentatives, while Per Krohg, the progressive son of a father
who in his day was equally advanced, carries the programme
of modernism still farther along its vaguely charted path-
way. One and all they are effective draughtsmen and exu-
berant colorists. " Displaying familiarity with Manet,
Cezanne, van Gogh, Henri-Matisse, and Picasso, they con-
stitute the advance guard of Norwegian painting.

The complexion of Norwegian art in fact changes with re-
freshing rapidity, for whereas formerly we felt in the work
of Fearnley and Cappelen the beating of the wings of roman-
tic aspiration, to-day we no less distinctly sense the stir of aes-
thetic radicalism. A scant decade ago the outstanding figures,
apart from Munch, were Lund, with his swift psychological
insight and Manet-like saliency of stroke, and Karsten, whose
canvases revealed a chromatic vigor and a freedom of
draughtsmanship new to their generation. In 19 14, how-
ever, occurred the debut of a new group known as De f jorten,
among whom were Sorensen, Heiberg, Per Deberitz, Thyge-

INTRODUCTION 33

sen, and Revold. All are, of course, ardent modernists, and
during the past half dozen years not a few of them have
found their final emancipation in abstract formulae. For
the rigorous realism of the eighties, the neo-romanticism of
the nineties, the delicate shimmer of impressionism, and the
intervening manifestations of a questing creative conscious-
ness have meanwhile merged into that broad category which
may best be characterized as expressionism.

You see the work of these artists in the current exhibi-
tions, and you meet the men themselves, now in the cafe of
the Grand Hotel, now in Copenhagen, or next in Paris where
they sip their liqueurs or modest bocs at the Cafe de la
Regence, just as the former generation of Northern artists
used to frequent the Cafe de l'Hermitage. What they have
to say about, and in, paint they say with assurance. So much
downright, unspoiled capacity for pictorial expression do
they display, that one is constrained to conclude that it may
be just as well, after all, that Norway should still boast no
official academy of art. For, had it such an institution, it is
by no means certain that these truculent young radicals would
condescend to darken its threshold.

We shall leave to Director Thiis the congenial task of
tracing the artistic physiognomy of Norway's most distin-
guished sculptor, Gustav Vigeland. His predecessors in
the field, prominent among whom were Julius Middelthun,
Brynjulf Bergslien, and the stressful and by no means subtle
Stephan Sinding, are likewise thrown into characteristic relief
upon Director Thiis's pages. The story of Norwegian sculp-
ture is brief, as is also that of Norwegian architecture. It is in
painting, and in the minor handicrafts, particularly weaving,
that the greatest progress has been made. And here again
you will note the same strength of color that you find on
canvas. For while the Swede is notable for the gift of
decorative synthesis, and the Dane exhibits a highly devel-
oped sense of form, color is the chief contribution of the
Norwegian.

In surveying Scandinavian art as presented throughout
the ensuing pages, you will readily discover the lyric

34 SCANDINAVIAN ART

mood already mentioned, for it is manifest almost every-
where in the production of these Northmen to whom emotion
has not infrequently proved of more significance than
mere substance or form. Detached, and in a measure iso-
lated though the artistic activity of these peoples has perforce
been, their contribution in certain instances transcends that
which is merely local in appeal. With the work of such men
as Sergei, Thorvaldsen, and the troubled, aspiring Munch,
this art attains true universality of utterance. And yet, while
such manifestations constitute its moments of supreme ex-
pression, it everywhere commands respect through its genuine
creative fecundity, and above all through its virile, organic
nationalism. It is in brief by bringing forth the native rich-
ness of spirit, and not relying upon atelier and academy, that
Scandinavian art has won its present position in the larger
pageant of pictorial and plastic aspiration.

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

CARL G. LAURIN

Author of Konsthistoria, Sweden Through The
Artist's Eye, Etc.

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

By Carl G. Laurin

THE ECCLESIASTICAL PERIOD

NUMEROUS relics of ancient times bear witness to
the high peasant culture possessed by Sweden thou-
sands of years before the Christian Era. The finely-
shaped swords and the spiral ornaments on buckles and
shield-plates of the Bronze Age reveal the presence of artis-
tic taste and skilled craftsmanship in our country before the
Persians encountered the Greeks. At a much later period,
the Germanic peoples, under impulses from classic civiliza-
tion, evolved an arabesque form of ornamentation, which
spread southward to Italy with the Lombards, and north-
ward to England and Ireland. From Erin's Isle the ara-
besque was again transplanted to the North, where it under-
went a varied development, as may be seen in the decorative
convolutions on certain rune stones, found principally in
central Sweden, and executed in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries. Erected at a time when the Romanesque school
dominated the continent, these runic monuments often show
Romanesque influence in the style of their ornamentations,
and the same is true of the old Norse forms of decoration
that were revived in the boldly fantastic, marvellously well
executed portals of the Norwegian wooden stave-churches as
well as in the remains of the Swedish. The first churches in
Sweden, like the houses and temples of pagan times, were
of wood.

After i ioo, stone churches became more and more com-
mon. In the twelfth century, Lund Cathedral was dedicated,

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The crypt of Lund Cathedral with the Giant Finn embracing one of
the columns

though it has, of course, been altered and repaired several
times since its erection. Built by Canute the Holy, it was
designed after the Romanesque temples of the Rhine district.
It was thoroughly repaired in the beginning of the sixteenth
century under the supervision of the Westphalian master-
builder, Adam varf Diiren, and during the nineteenth cen-
tury it was subjected to a crude restoration. The choir is
adorned with richly carved Gothic stalls, executed about the
year 1400. The magnificent crypt, resting on columns with
square capitals, extends beneath the chancel and transept.
The oldest sculpture of the cathedral is the so-called Giant
Finn, who embraces one of the columns of the crypt. It is
considered by many to represent Samson. In the last decade
of the twelfth century, Gumlosa Church in Skane, about
twenty kilometers northwest of Kristianstad was dedicated.
It was covered by a cross-vault, and was built of brick, with
the tower and the roof ornamented by corbie-step gables.
These latter, which were added subsequently, constitute,
naturally enough, a characteristic of brick architecture, and
are often found on the church buildings that rise on the

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

waving grain fields of Skane or gleam among the beech wood-
lands of Sjaelland. Now and then, these edifices were given
a round form, but more often they were constructed with a
single rectangular nave. The walls of the small country
churches were as thick as fortresses, and during these times,
when there was a constant state of war, they were in fact
sometimes used as forts. The steeple was not considered a
necessity, and several of our foremost abbeys and cathedrals
had no steeples, but when it became the custom in many
country districts, especially in Gotland, to erect towers for
defense, known as castellets, it was ultimately found prac-
tical to build these towers, adjoining the church. The Keep
in Halsingborg, a remnant of the defenses of the city, prob-
ably dating back to the twelfth century, is one of the few
secular constructions from olden times in Sweden.

In the region of Vastergotland, where Christian Swedish
culture first made its appearance, the abbey of Varnhem
indicates a French arrangement of choir and chapels. The
monastery of Varnhem was founded about 1150 by monks

The abbey of Varnhem completed in the thirteenth century

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The choir in the abbey of Varnhem presaging the Gothic
style

of the Bernardine order. On the plain below Billingen, the
white walls of the venerable church gleam through the ver-
dure. The edifice was not completed until the middle of
the thirteenth century, and its interior presages the introduc-
tion of the Gothic style. The Gothic cathedral of Skara,
with its abruptly terminating choir, has been much altered
in the course of its manifold reconstructions. The original
building, like the present one, was characterized by triforia.
In the city of Sigtuna, on Lake Malaren, there were a num-
ber of churches erected in the twelfth century in the Roman-
esque style, but unfortunately these are now in ruins.

Without doubt, Gotland was the Swedish province where

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

The lower story of the peculiar double church of the Helgeandsorden
at Visby, now a ruin

the art of building attained its highest development during
the Middle Ages. The active mercantile relations of the
island with Russia and northern Germany, the presence of a
wealthy German-Swedish middle class in Visby, and the
abundance of sandstone and limestone were factors in pro-

SCANDINAVIAN ART

ducing a richer architecture than that on the mainland. The
golden period falls in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
and many a stately church sprang up between the corbie-step
gables of the burghers' houses, behind the defiant city wall
with its bartizans and earth-bound towers. The peculiar
double church of the Helgeandsorden dates presumably
from the beginning of the thirteenth century, and reveals the
mingling of Romanesque and Gothic forms characteristic
of the period. It is an octagonal, centralized construction,

Dalhem Church typical of the country churches in Gotland

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

The portal of Etelhem Church with the union
of Romanesque and Gothic characteristic of Got-
land churches

with two stories connected by flights of stairs and by an
opening two meters wide in the floor of the second story.
In all probability, one part was intended for the sick and
the poor, the other for the wealthy supporters and friends
of the Order among the merchant aristocracy of Visby.
Unfortunately the Helgeandskyrka, like all churches of
Visby — with the exception of the St. Maria Cathedral — is a
ruin, though tolerably well preserved. The Gothic choir of
St. Karin belongs to the end of the fourteenth century, and
must therefore have been built immediately after Valdemar
Atterdag sacked the city in 1 361, when the Danish ships
were loaded with several barrels of shining Visby coins
minted with the figures of the lamb and the lily. The

44 SCANDINAVIAN ART

majority of the churches on Gotland were enlarged or re-
built during the Gothic period.

In the country districts of Gotland the churches are better
preserved. Dalhem Church, dedicated in the beginning of
the thirteenth century, has a tower that is typical of many of
the country churches of Gotland; the lower part is Roman-
esque; the upper part has been added later and has pointed

View of the interior of Etelhern Church showing the central column

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

arches. In its interior it is a hall church, resting upon
slender columns with the square capitals characteristic of
northern Europe. In several churches the nave was covered
by four cross vaults, resting upon one central column, as in
the Etelhem Church. As an example of the Gotland portals
with their union of Romanesque and Gothic forms, and with
a lintel resembling the Romanesque ornamentation in wood,
the portal of Etelhem Church may be mentioned.

The nave of Linkoping Cathedral showing English influence

Gotland belonged to the bishopric of Linkoping, and
with the help of the Gotlanders, who were skilled in stone
work, one of the most stately cathedrals of the land was
erected in the city of Linkoping. Its predominating style,
however, was English. It took a long time to build Lin-
koping Cathedral. It is said to have been begun shortly
after the year 1200, and the construction went on during the
whole of the thirteenth century,- the first half of the four-
teenth— the work was interrupted by the Great Plague —
and the fifteenth century. The west towers, which were a

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The south portal of Linkoping Cathedral showing the influence of the
Gotland church buildings

part of the plan, were never erected. The church had a
greater richness of ornamentation than any seen before in
our land. The interior consisted of a three-naved body,
forming a hall-church with a later Gothic choir and ambu-
latory. The construction of the choir was begun in the
early part of the fifteenth century by a Master Gierlac from
Cologne, and was completed about a hundred years later by
other "Cologne ma*ster-men." The magnificent south por-
tal betrayed clearly a Gotlandic influence.

On the plain of Uppland, Sweden's largest cathedral
edifice, Uppsala Cathedral, stands as the foremost example
of Swedish brick architecture in the Gothic style. Numer-
ous fires, restorations, and finally a complete reconstruc-
tion in 1 885-1 893 have considerably changed the old
church, but the interior, the plan, and certain details still
remain from the medieval period. The foundations were
laid during the second half of the thirteenth century, and
during the whole of the following century papal indulgences
were granted to those who contributed gifts for its erection.
The cathedral was not dedicated until 1435, and was not
even then entirely finished. The plan is northern French.
It is a three-naved basilica, that is, it possesses a central

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body provided with windows and consequently higher than
the side naves. A row of chapels extends around the whole
church — an arrangement typical of the Baltic region. The
choir has the characteristic French form with an encircling
ambulatory and a row of chapels, the central one of which
contains the stately Sarcophagus of Gustavus Vasa, made
in the Netherlands. The fresco paintings added in the thir-
ties of the nineteenth century are painted by Johan Gustav

Sculpture on a console in Uppsala Cathedral representing Jews being
suckled by a sow

Sandberg, and treat of the historical events in the life of
Gustavus Vasa according to the conceptions prevalent in
that period. The interior of the church measures 107
meters in length, 27 meters in height, and is for the most
part newly decorated.

Among the more noteworthy remains from medieval
times still seen in the church are the consoles, originally
pedestals for statues that have since disappeared, which
now adorn the pillars near the choir-ambulatory. The
sculptures that grace the consoles were in all probability exe-

48 SCANDINAVIAN ART

cuted by Gotlandic sculptors about 1350, and represent
naively, but with considerable faithfulness of description,
medieval legends and symbols and even a brutal anti-Semitic
raillery. Jews and pigs are seen tumbling over one another
with obvious friendliness, an illustration that calls to mind
the coarseness of medieval sermons, spiced for the special
benefit of the congregation. The French sculptor, Etienne
de Bonneuil, and his journeymen worked on the cathedral
the last years of the thirteenth century. Back of the high
altar, near which Archbishop Jons Bengtsson Oxenstierna
swore at one time not to exchange armor and sword for
the bishop's hat and staff until he had driven Karl Knutsson
out of the land, stands the "Gilded" silver shrine of St. Eric
— the present one executed by a Danish goldsmith during the
reign of Johan III — containing the bones of the saint, which
were brought here from Old Uppsala in 1273. The pulpit,
carved by the sculptor Burchardt Precht after drawings by
Nikodemus Tessin the Younger, was set up early in the
eighteenth century and is a master example of the most luxu-
rious baroque, well suited to the pompous and endless
sermons of the Carolinian age. Precht carved also the
magnificent altar-piece in the baroque style, which adorned
the church for almost two hundred years, until it was re-
moved at the time, of the restoration, and replaced by a
new one in the Gothic style of 1890. This remarkable
work of art was sculptured by Precht strongly influenced
by the design of the altar of St. Ignatius by Padre Pozzo;
it is now in the Vasa Church in Stockholm. The exterior of
the cathedral has undergone, if possible, yet greater
changes. About the year 1400, two enormous brick towers
of the North German style with buttresses were erected. In
the course of time, the spires have had a great variety of
forms. During the seventeenth century, the church had
spires in the baroque style and a smaller spire or ridge-
turret directly over the intersection-point of the roofs. The
fire of 1702 did violent damage to the cathedral. In the
restoration which followed thereupon, the arch-buttresses
and ridge-turret were removed, and the architect Harleman

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 49

erected those tower-caps which gave their characteristic
stamp to the Uppsala of Linne and Geijer. The recon-
structed building, which was completed in the nineties of
the last century, is an attempt to give the church again a
kind of French-Gothic appearance in the cheapest and quick-
est way by removing the alterations that have accrued
through the centuries. The old, venerable tower-caps were
torn down, the tower fagades were redone, and phialae and
fountains were done in cement, since in our day we could
not "afford" to use cut stone for the first church of the
kingdom. In contrast with this thin and cheap cement-
Gothicism, the beautiful south portal, erected early in the
fourteenth century at the expense of Chancellor Ambjorn
Sparre, produces an effect of unusual charm through the
beauty of its sculpture and the richness of its material.

Two important brick churches are the old cathedrals of
Vasteras and Strangnas, which have been several times re-
built, and which in the latter half of the fifteenth century
received new choirs. The recently restored Strangnas
Cathedral, with its picturesque tower in the baroque style
and its red brick walls rising out of the verdure, is certainly
through its location and also in other ways one of Sweden's
most beautiful cathedrals.

Most notable among the churches of the late Middle
Ages is the abbey of Vadstena, built of limestone with the
choir toward the west, according to the directions of St.
Birgitta, as prescribed and revealed to her by Christ. The
fifteenth century — the chapel was dedicated in 1430 — was
the golden age of the abbey and convent. The bluish-grey
limestone walls of this towerless church were surrounded
by the most luxuriant vegetation, for the monks and nuns
of the Briggittine order were zealous gardeners and pos-
sessed an appreciation of the beauties of nature. Many
believers visited the beautiful convent-chapel on the shore
of Lake Vattern and found solace in the sight of the Holy
Virgin's milk, a precious relic which was preserved there.
The interior is supported by simple, octagonal pillars, and
the roof is made up of graceful, ribbed vaulting.

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Baptismal font executed in Gotland, about the year 1200,

used in Tingstad church in Ostergotland. The reliefs

around the cuppa represent the Three Wise Men and

other incidents from the childhood of Christ

Sculpture and painting were very little developed in
Sweden during the Middle Ages. The sculpture on the
portals of the cathedrals has already been mentioned.
There was not much art in the ordinary Swedish country
church during the Middle Ages, but sometimes the baptismal
font would be a real work of art, with a cuppa, or bowl,
embellished with carved arabesques or reliefs. The sacred
vessels were also of noble form and decked with precious
stones. Pictures of Mary and the saints, all sculptured in
wood in adherence to the prevailing tendencies of art on
the Continent, were not uncommon. Large carved crucifixes
were sometimes suspended in the triumphal arch, the vault
of the chancel. Now and then, during the earlier Middle
Ages, the altar in Sweden was beautified also by a sculp-
tured tablet of wood or metal, the antemensale. This form
of altar-decoration was succeeded during the fourteenth

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 51

century by tabernacles placed back of the altar with figures
of the madonna and the saints. Toward the end of the
fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, taber-
nacles of unusually magnificent workmanship were imported
from the Netherlands. In these so-called mystery taber-
nacles, the figures, formerly so rigid, were brought together
dramatically to reproduce situations from Sacred History,
arranged in groups reminiscent of scenes from the Mystery
Plays, and installed in small niches. The figures were
carved in wood, and were painted and gilded, so that the
whole assumed a character of wrought gold in conformity
with the essence of the Gothic style. All this was seen when
the tabernacle was open; when it was closed, only the paint-
ings on the outside door were exposed to view.

A number of magnificent tabernacles were also imported
from Germany, of which the most important was completed
in the year 1468 in Liibeck for the Storkyrka in Stockholm.
It is now preserved in Statens Historiska Museum. One of
the most beautiful German tabernacles is one ornamented by
painting and sculptures, which was executed early in the
sixteenth century and is now found in the Stadskyrka of
Koping. Here, however, the figures were set up one by
one, just as in the older altar cabinets. Even individual
madonna figures were inserted in tabernacles with painted
doors; for example, the unusually charming madonna,
which is preserved in Sorunda Church in Sodertorn, where
Mary, clad in gold brocade with a golden crown, is sur-
rounded by the four mother virgins, Saints Barbara, Doro-
thea, Catherine, and Margaret, painted on the doors. This
work of art was executed in Liibeck about 1480. In the
preservation of such partly destroyed and often dispersed
and slighted works of art as baptismal fonts, crucifixes, and
tabernacles, which form so important a part in our country's
history of art and aesthetic beauty, the well-directed, prac-
tical, and energetic measures of Docent J. Roosval and Pro-
fessor S. Curman have earned the gratitude of our nation.

In the so-called triumphal arch, the arch which separates
the choir from the nave, there often hung what was termed

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The madonna tabernacle in Sorunda church in Sodertorn, where

the Virgin Mary is surrounded by the four mother virgins. Executed

about 1480 in Herman Rode's workshop in Liibeck.

a triumph crucifix, and the most artistically finished of these
is a figure of the crucified Savior, with the symbols of the
Evangelists on the four ends of the cross, executed in painted
wood about 1440. The well-nigh naturalistic treatment of
the design calls to mind the Spanish wood sculptures of the
seventeenth century. It has been hanging in the abbey of
Vadstena since medieval times.

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The triumph crucifix in the abbey of Vadstena, called "Salvator i

Wadstena," supposed to have been made by a German master about

the year 1440

Gustavus Adolphus was accustomed to say that, "in
Sweden there were above others three great masterpieces:
the Knight St. Goran in Stockholm, the altar painting in
Linkoping (by the Dutchman Hemskerk), and the Salvator

SCANDINAVIAN ART

St. Goran and the Dragon, sculpture in wood by Berndt Notke, from
about the year 1489. In the Storkyrka at Stockholm

in Vadstena." The foremost example of medieval Swedish
sculpture is the enormous statue of St. Goran and the
Dragon, paid for by national subscription, and set up, in
1480, in the Storkyrka in Stockholm by Sten Sture the Elder

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 55

to commemorate his victory at Brunkeberg, 147 1.* The
statue, which is executed in wood and painted, was carved
by the German artist, Berndt Notke. In a youthful spirit of
combat, the patron saint of warriors attacks the dragon with
his sword, and the terrible monster, from whose skin pro-
tuberances have grown like moose horns, roars, and in his
death-struggle clutches with one of his claws the broken
lance of the saint. The kneeling rescued maiden reminds
us of the noble Swedish women who, while the battle was
raging on the slopes of Brunkeberg Ridge, sent up fervent
prayers for the life and victory of their knights.

The Storkyrka in Stockholm, built by Birger Jarl and
first called bykyrkan (the village church) was sacred to the
patron saint of sea-farers, St. Nicholas. The interior,
which has been. finished with great taste and care, is one of
the most beautiful church interiors of our country. Besides
the above-mentioned St. Goran and the Dragon, the temple
is adorned by a magnificent altar-piece made of silver, ivory,
and ebony, which was presented to the church in the middle
of the seventeenth century by the royal councillor, Adler
Salvius, replacing the old tabernacle made in 1460-1470
which is now preserved in Statens Historiska Museum. Be-
fore it stands a seven-armed, medieval, bronze candlestick of
enormous size, a gift from the middle of the fourteenth
century of King Magnus Eriksson. A number of pomp-
ously gilded epitaphs from the late Renaissance illumine the
solemn brick vaults. Strangnas Cathedral received at the
close of the fifteenth century, from Bishop Kort Rogge, a

* The figure of St. Goran (St. George) was allowed to stand for nearly
four hundred years in the Storkyrka where "the great Goran" aroused the
interest of all church attendants, and not least of the country people who
came to Stockholm. Carl Larsson tells us what a strong impression the
fantastic group made upon him as a boy. In 1866 the statue was moved
to the National Museum, where it was set up in a dark and very unsuitable
place, and stood there in obscurity until 1907, when it was reclaimed by
the Storkyrka. In 1912 a bronze copy of St. Goran was set up on Kopman-
brinken in Stockholm. The princess was added in 1913. From the stand-
point of beauty, the arrangement of this whole group is, I dare say, the
happiest that any work of sculpture, placed out of doors, has received in
our land.

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Altar tabernacle in Strangnas Cathedral with sculptures representing

Christ being taken down from the cross. Made in Brussels about

the year 1490

tabernacle in painted wood sculpture, which was executed
in the Netherlands.

In the thirteenth century people commenced to decorate
the walls of the churches, and the mural paintings in Rada
Church in Varmland, from the century following, are still
preserved. During the fifteenth century, mural painting in

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Unicorn pursued by the Angel Gabriel, painting in the ceiling of
Osmo Church in Sodertorn

churches became very common. The paintings on the ceil-
ing of Osmo Church in Sodertorn date from the middle of
this century. One of these represents the popular legend
of the unicorn, when pursued by the angel Gabriel equipped
with dogs and hunting-horn, taking refuge with the Holy
Virgin.

THE CASTLES OF THE VASAS. AFTER THE
THIRTY YEARS' WAR

DURING the reign of the Vasa kings, the Church was
obscured by the royal power. Communion cups and
silver crucifixes found their way into the State
treasury, monasteries were suppressed, and church-building
— there was already a superabundance of churches — ceased.
The economical rule of King Gosta did not permit art to
flourish. The fortified castles and palaces of the realm,
which had fared badly during the War of Liberation, had
to be put in good condition first, before one could consider
their artistic adornment. Kalmar Castle and the Royal
Palace in Stockholm were repaired during the last years of
Gustavus Vasa's reign, but, despite their interior renovation,
they maintained their stern medieval exterior. The archi-
tects and artists of fhis period were mostly Germans and
Dutchmen, which was natural enough, since the Swedish
bourgeoisie, both at that time and during a large part of
the seventeenth century, was mixed with a very considerable
German and Flemish-Dutch element.

In the year 1537, Gustavus Vasa built Gripsholm Castle,
which was enlarged by Charles IX duping the last years of
the sixteenth century. Ponderous brick walls enclose two
irregular courtyards, the smaller bounded by four round
towers with walls three or four meters thick, where the
deep embrasures are like small rooms, from which the
Malaren bay and the castle park may be seen. The room in
the tower from which Duke Charles looked out over his
Sodermanland has been preserved without any changes; the
wooden wainscoting of the walls have a Renaissance char-

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J8D< JQ
1 '

s^wJmBB1

Vadstena Castle on Lake Vattern, built by Gustavus Vasa. View
showing one of the richly ornamented gables that were added later

acter, but are simple in form; the white ceiling is decorated
with a vine-ornamentation, painted by an artisan from
Strangnas, and the bed, engirded by pilasters of the Renais-
sance style, is built into the wall. To this bed there came

SCANDINAVIAN ART

often, no doubt, gloomy thoughts, when the austere duke
brooded over Sigismund, who was born in Gripsholm, or
remembered how his brothers, Eric and Johan, with hearts
full of hate, had imprisoned each other in this castle.
Queen Hedvig Eleonora made Gripsholm her home during
her long widowhood. She enlarged the castle, but it under-
went yet greater alterations during the reign of Gustavus
III. The substantial church tower was then renovated to
form a coquettish theatre in the Gustavian style, where the
members of the court and the royal family appeared in the
performances. Several rooms were fitted up in the charm-
ing style of the eighteenth century; silk shoes tripped on the
narrow stairways, and the gay laughter of the court ladies
chased away all gloomy memories from the castle. In the
nineties of the last century, the castle was restored.

Although Vadstena Castle, built in 1545, was intended
first of all to serve as a military base in case of an attack
from the south, it became in several respects Sweden's most
important Renaissance palace. Built of greyish stone, with
high and richly ornamented gables, added during the first

King Eric XIV's room in Kalmar Castle, decorated with a relief
frieze representing hunting scenes in painted stucco

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decade of the seventeenth
century, and with its Dor-
ic portals of stone artis-
tically carved, it produces
an impression resembling
the mansions of the Ger-
man-Dutch princes.

A third castle, which
shows Sweden's early
Renaissance, the so-
called Vasa style with its
union of medieval archi-
tecture and Renaissance
ornament (compare the
style of Francis I, in
France, for we were al-
ways a few decades be-
hind Central Europe) is
"the key of Sweden,"
Kalmar Castle. In the
apartment de luxe of the
castle lived Eric XIV,
and here the gifted prince
could receive his counts
and barons in royal fash-
ion. It is claimed that
the king himself, who

was interested in art, contributed with his own hand to the
decoration of King Eric's apartment, where a panel with
Corinthian columns, a relief-frieze with hunting figures in
painted stucco, and doors inlaid with different kinds of wood
formed a suitable frame for the court of the brilliant Renais-
sance monarch.

The wealthy and splendor-loving Danish nobility built
in Skane, especially during the sixteenth and the first half
of the seventeenth century, a number of magnificent castles
and strongholds, of which some are still preserved. Such
are Glimmingehus, of which the foundation was laid in

Fountain set up in the court of
Kalmar Castle by Johan III, the
work of Dominicus Pahr and Ro-
land Mackle

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Svenstorp castle near Lund in Skane, built in 1596

1499; Borgeby near Lund; Vittskovle, which is situated a
short distance from Kristianstad and mirrors its proud walls
in the water of the canals; Skarhult near Eslov; and most
notable of all, Svenstorp in the vicinity of Lund, constructed
about 1590, and the most stately and the most nobly con-
ceived of these castles. Trefaldighetskyrkan in Kristian-
stad, completed in 1628, is also built in this Danish brick
Renaissance style.

Johan III had a real mania for architecture. He added
to the decorations of Kalmar Castle, and set up in the court
a fine fountain, the severe Doric forms of which are
enlivened by escutcheons and grinning faces, the whole
crowned by a dolphin. King Johan, concerning whom
Johan Messenius said,

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 63

"Well would he, as I have learned,
Stockholm into Rome and Venice have turned"
repaired the Grey Friars' old temple, the Riddarholm
Church in Stockholm, and built its present choir in the Gothic
style. This church had been constructed at the end of the
thirteenth century by Magnus Ladulas, who is buried there.
Johan's chief interest, however, was to enlarge and beautify
the Royal Palace in Stockholm. Its inner court was given
an appearance more "in conformity with the time" by the
construction of the Green Corridor and the large flight of
steps with the baldachin and Trumpeters' Corridor. The
exterior, with its smooth walls, and the proud tower Tre
Kronor, retained its medieval character for a hundred
years more.

On the barren Swedish soil, the art of painting grew
slowly, and when we entered into direct relation with the
Continent through the Vasa kings, an importation of art
and artists was the only way in which artistic activity could
be promoted. Thus the Dutchman, Verwilt, came during
the last years of Gustavus Vasa's reign, and assisted in the
interior decoration of Kalmar Castle during the reign of
Eric XIV. He designed also the cartoons for the woven
tapestries, which were then made in Sweden, and of which
two are preserved in the National Museum. They treat
themes from mythical history, one picturing the story of
King Sveno and the other that of Magog. Baptista van
Uther acted as court painter to Johan III.

The foundations of Jakob's Church in Stockholm were
laid during the reign of Johan III, but it was not fully com-
pleted until the middle of the seventeenth century. The
German Church in Stockholm is one of the most inspiring
in Sweden, thanks to the faithfulness with which the old
artistic interior is preserved. Moreover it is surrounded
by verdant trees in the midst of urban houses, and possesses
beautiful wrought iron gates. The church with its network
of ribbed vaulting was finished about 1640. The vaults are
of the late Gothic style, but the altarpiece, the pulpit of
ebony and alabaster, and the showy royal gallery with its

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The portal of Erik von der Linde's house in Stock-
holm, built at the time of the Thirty Years' War

glass walls, constructed in 1672, as well as the portal, are
of the German baroque. In 1890 the German Church was
extraordinarily well repaired.

Private houses in Stockholm retained the pointed gables
of medieval times during the seventeenth century, as the
copper engravings of Dahlbergh's Snecia antiqua show, but
the ornamentation reveals a taste for an exuberant form of
the baroque with the addition of a bourgeois touch. A
typical example of a wealthy citizen's home in Stockholm
during the days of the Thirty Years' War is the House of
Erik von der Linde at 68 Vasterlanggatan. Linde, himself
a native of Holland, became a Swedish nobleman, and his

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 65

son Lars had the honor of being boon companion to Charles
X Gustavus. The front of the mansion is adorned by a
magnificent portal, where the busts of Neptune and Mer-
cury indicate that the owner had acquired riches through
commerce and trade. On the doorposts luscious fruits are
carved — an expression of the Rubensian joy of living and
love of sumptuousness that marked the age. The side which
faces the Kornhamnstorg still retains, in spite of alterations,
its bower (bursprdk) , a form of extension which was par-
ticularly popular in Germany. In the Linde house it is
supported by comical sea-gods, rendered with that Northern
humor which north of the Alps so often breaks through the
studied forms of the Renaissance and gives a tinge of medie-
valism. That the house in its day had been costly can be
concluded from the assertion of the builder that "nobody
shall know what my house and my son Lasse have cost me."
The Petersen House near Munkbron in Stockholm was built
about 1650 upon the site where the historian Erik Gorans-
son Tegel, the son of Goran Persson, had his spice shop in
the early part of the century. An addition was built, during
the latter part of the nineteenth century, on the side facing
the sea. Often the ends of the crampirons were allowed
to appear on the plastered facade and were ornamented.
Decorative devices in metal were not seldom seen.

When the Swedish magnates, laden with booty, returned
from the long German war, they found their poor wooden
houses or their clumsy stone fortresses small and uncom-
fortable, and, spurred on by foreign examples, they now
commenced to build castles and mansions which corre-
sponded with the growing prestige of the nobility and with
the more peaceful and orderly conditions within the country.
The construction of Axel Oxenstierna's mansion Tido in
Vastmanland, on the shores of Lake Malaren, was begun
soon after 1620, but was not completed until about 1650.
Tido consists of a main building and also, like the castles of
the French grandees, of lower wings, which adjoin a third
low building or wall, and encircle the paved courtyard.
Through a stately stone portal in the style of the late Renais-

66 SCANDINAVIAN ART

sance, ornamented by coats-of-arms, the heavy, seventeenth-
century carriages rolled in and stopped in front of the big dou-
ble flights of steps. As befitted the great chancellor, the walls
of the castle apartments were adorned with Gobelin tapes-
try and gilt leather hangings, and the doors — real treasures
— were inlaid with different kinds of wood and provided
with artistically made locks. Tido showed both in its exte-
rior and interior that a new age had arrived. Instead of
the irregular medieval structures, where the exterior signi-
fied only defiant strength, there began to appear castles in
which a symmetrical design and noble, well-balanced pro-
portions were intended to infuse in the spectator subservient
sentiments of admiration and respect.

About 1650 the palace Makalos was built in Stockholm
between Kungstradgarden and Strommen. It belonged to
the husband of Ebba Brahe, Jakob De la Gardie, and with
its steep roof and rich sandstone ornaments, was the finest
private house in the city. Later it was used as arsenal and
dramatic theatre. It was destroyed by fire in 1825.

During the reign of Christina, the Dutchman, David
Beck, resided a few years in Sweden. He painted the por-
trait of Queen Christina, and also left us a strong and
subtle picture of General Gustav Horn, which proves that
he studied to good .purpose under Van Dyck. The French-
man, Sebastien Bourdon, in his portrait of Christina — in
simple black dress with white collar — has rendered in a
distinguished manner her pale, aristocratic Vasa features
with the large, greyish-blue eyes. His portrait of Chris-
tina's half-brother, the Count of Vasaborg, the son of
Gustavus Adolphus and Margareta Slots, shows the same
merits. Christina had a profound interest in art. Her
collection of paintings was considerable, and an immeas-
urable aesthetic capital was removed from the land when
she took away her Corregio, Titian, and Veronese canvases.

Many castles of real magnificence from the viewpoint of
our conditions are pictured in Suecia antiqua et hodierna by
the celebrated general and architect Erik Dahlbergh, the
most superb and costly work de luxe that has ever been
published in our land. Several of the castles reproduced in

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Drottningholm Castle near Stockholm, the central part designed by
Tessin the Elder for Queen Dowager Hedvig Eleonora

good copper engravings from sketches by Dahlbergh, ren-
dering even the artistically trimmed hedges of the parks
and symmetrically grouped platbands, have never been
built; for the Crown reduction of Charles XI compelled
many an ambitious building-plan to stop on paper. Snecia
antiqua appeared in 17 16.

One of the most splendid castles, filled with a super-
abundance of booty from the Thirty Years' War, was Gen-
eral Karl Gustav Wrangel's Skokloster with its magnificent
vestibule supported by joined Ionic columns. It is situated
on the fairway between Sigtuna and Uppsala, was built by
a native of Stralsund, Nikodemus Tessin the Elder, and the
Frenchman, Jean de la Vallee, and finished in 1679. Among
the Elder Tessin's many and important buildings was Axel
Oxenstierna's Palace (now the central office of the Statis-
tical Bureau) near Storkyrkobrinken, and the former Riks-
bank in Stockholm, reminiscent of the Roman palaces.
Tessin the Elder made the first drawings for the Carolinian
mortuary chapel known as Karolinska Kapellet. The other
chapels in the Riddarholm Church were constructed about
1650.

68 SCANDINAVIAN ART

The central part of Drottningholm Castle was built, in
conformity with the wishes of the art-loving Dowager Queen
of the Realm, Hedvig Eleonora, by Tessin the Elder.
Precht sculptured Hedvig Eleonora's magnificent golden
bed-chamber. Tessin also designed Borgholm Castle on
Oland. This building, begun in 1654, is now the most
beautiful ruin in Sweden. In Kalmar Cathedral, dedicated
1682, Tessin the Elder furnished an example of a central
church in the baroque style, although the cupola, which is
essential for such a building, was never constructed.

The zealous orthodox movement which characterized the
latter half of the seventeenth century in our land, not least
during the severely ecclesiastical rule of Charles XI, re-
sulted in a large number of church buildings. The majority
of our churches then received altar decorations and pulpits
in the rich and florid forms of the time; in the year 1671
Katarina Church in Stockholm was dedicated, and in 1658
the foundations were laid of the Hedvig Eleonora Church
in the eastern suburb of the city. Both these, as well as the
Ulrica Eleonora or Kungsholm church, which was built in
the decade of 1670 and named after the pious wife of
Charles XI, are central churches in the baroque style.

The most beautiful architectural creation of the century
is Riddarhuset (the Hall of Knights) in Stockholm which,
however, was not completed early enough to be occupied
during the most brilliant period of the Swedish nobility.
Two architects, emigrants from France, Simon de la Vallee
(killed in 1642 by Erik Oxenstierna in a fight on the public
marketplace in Stockholm) and his son, Jean de la Vallee,
were the designers of this palace, which was constructed in
a kind of French-Dutch baroque. The foundations were
laid in 1642 from drawings by Simon de la Vallee, but Jean,
who also built the beautiful palace, formerly the Town Hall,
owned by First Lord of the Treasury Gustav Bonde, later
altered this plan and, together with the Dutchman, Ving-
boons, became the real creator of the edifice. It was not
before 1680, when the supremacy of the nobility was really
nearing its close, and the nobles were compelled to bend

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

Riddaihuset (the Hall of Knights) in Stockholm, designed by Simon
de la Vallee and his son, Jean de la Vallee, completed in 1680

the neck under absolutism, that the Estate took possession
of the building. The red brick walls are partitioned by
pilasters of sandstone, which, according to the new baroque
ideas, pass through both stories. Very beautiful Corinthian
capitals support a frieze, bearing an inscription which runs
around the building and is composed of unusually well-
formed letters. The boldly curved copper roof by Jean de
la Vallee is crowned by chimneys constructed like altars or
sending out clouds of smoke from bomb-like structures which
rest on pedestals adorned with trophies. The roof, sup-
ported by consoles and graced by decorative statues, is
broken by a gable on each side. Luxuriant garlands of fruit
carved in stone separate the two stories, and beneath the
windows and in the segment-arched or triangular gable-bays
over the tops of the windows, grin the grotesque, decorative
heads so well loved by the creators of the baroque style
north of the Alps. In the large assembly hall of Riddar-
huset, Ehrenstrahl painted in 1674, the same year that he
himself was raised to the peerage, a gigantic ceiling com-
position representing The Graces in Counsel before the

70 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Throne of Svea ; and, now following, now deviating from
these high precepts, the Swedish noblemen deliberated in
this building about the welfare of Sweden until that mem-
orable December day in 1865, when patriotism and gener-
osity were strong enough to make them sacrifice their
privileged condition of their own free will.

David Klocker, enobled under the name of Ehrenstrahl,
was born in Hamburg. In his pompous portraits of the
kings of the Palatine House, of his patroness Queen Hedvig
Eleonora, and of the ladies and gentlemen of the Swedish
nobility, we see the princes and rulers of the age known as
"The Period of Greatness," a little heavy perhaps in their
pomposity, very uneven in artistic presentation, but always
instinct with power and boldness. Ehrenstrahl has painted
half a century of Swedish greatness. He became "the
father of the Swedish art of painting."

The young Klocker started — and this is almost symbolic
of his art — as a chancery clerk in the negotiations connected
with the Peace of Westphalia. The young German was
noted for his beautiful penmanship, and there is an inner
connection between the strokes and flourishes which he
added to the graceful and bombastic diplomatic phrases and
his own artistic temperament. He studied first in Amster-
dam, came to Sweden in 1651, and the following year
painted the equestrian portrait of Karl Gustav Wrangel.
In the latter part of this decade he studied the contemporary
baroque paintings in Italy. In 1661 he was called to Sweden
and then painted in uninterrupted succession, sometimes
carelessly and sometimes carefully, a countless number of
portraits. Among these are Georg Stiernhielm, 1663 ; Erik
Dahlberg, 1664; and the three Charleses: the talented and
corpulent Charles X Gustavus and his son, the surly and duti-
ful economist, Charles XI, in Roman fancy dress, with luxur-
iant locks and fluttering mantles, curbing strongly built
chargers; and, finally, Charles XII, though only as a child.
Ehrenstrahl's Crown Prince Charles (XII) and his Brother
and Sister Playing with the Lion of Gothia* shows the

*Here, one of the three original integral parts of Sweden,

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Crown Prince Charles (XII) and His Sister and Brother Playing

with the Lion of Gothia. Painting by Ehrenstrahl, in the National

Museum at Stockholm

princely children tumbling about most graciously with the
dangerous lion, which in all humility rejoices at the honor.
If we imagine his portraits placed in a seventeenth cen-
tury salon, among ponderous, richly sculptured baroque cab-
inets with projecting mouldings, and hung above pompous
mantlepieces of imitation stone in the castle apartments,
these pictures, in spite of a certain awkwardness, have a dec-
orative value which transcends the purely historical. Ehren-
strahl's colossal painting The Crucifixion, 1695, and The

72 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Last Judgment, 1696, are now to be found in Stockholm's
Storkyrka, where he himself is buried. In Gripsholm his
painting of The Well-masters in Medevi, who pour out
water for the bathing guests, 1683, is preserved. With this
work he introduced genre painting into Sweden, and, strange
to say, animal painting also, for in his rendering of the
woods and the birds he contributed something distinctly
new and Swedish. It is dilettantish, to be sure, but it is exe-
cuted in a fresh and almost modern way. His Self Portrait,
with allegorical figures, in the National Museum, bears the
following inscription in his own hand setting forth the pur-
pose of his art, portraits, and allegories: "This painting is
executed in the year 1691 by His Royal Majesty's Court-
Intendant, David Klocker Ehrenstrahl, in his sixty-second
year, and is intended to represent how, out of love for the
art of painting, he seeks to exalt with his fantasy, the im-
mortal honor of the higher authorities."

Ill

THE CAROLINIAN AGE
THE ROYAL PALACE

NIKODEMUS TESSIN the Younger was the son
of Nikodemus Tessin the Elder, mentioned in the
preceding chapter. It was prophetic of the royal
favor he was destined to enjoy all his life that he was carried
to the baptismal font by Queen Maria Eleonora, the widow
of Gustavus Adolphus. He learned sketching from his
father, but maintained that the direct impulse to enter the
field of architecture came to him at seventeen from the
Queen Dowager of the Realm, Hedvig Eleonora, who made
her influence felt so often and so happily on behalf of Swe-
dish art. The young man arrived in Rome at the age of nine-
teen, eager to learn, and was received with great kindness
by Queen Christina, through whom he gained admittance
to the artist most eminent in Rome at the time, Cavaliere
Bernini. Concerning the latter Tessin testified that "with
a special disposition and care he gave me all the informa-
tion I could desire, both in the choice of the best works and
in the censuring of the designs for my studies which I made
myself."

He returned to Stockholm, and upon the death of his
father in 1681, was appointed architect of the Royal Palace.
It thus fell to his lot to continue the construction of the
Drottningholm country palace and its extensive park. In
order to carry on studies for the rebuilding of the old and
venerable Royal Palace in Stockholm, which Charles XI
had planned, Tessin went abroad again in 1687, this time in
company with Burchardt Precht, a gifted German sculptor
in wood who had settled in Sweden.

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Nikodemus Tes-
sin the Younger
designed the pom-
pous carved and
gilded Kings' Pews
which were exe-
cuted in wood by
P r e c h t, and in-
stalled, 1684, in
the Storkyrka.
Tessin also made
the drawings for a
pulpit, sculptured
by Precht, which
was presented to
Uppsala Cathedral
by Hedvig Ele-
onora in the year
of the battle of
Poltava. Through
these works of art
in particular, baro-
que sculpture, as
practised by Tes-
sin and Precht,
came to exert a
strong influence
upon the adorn-
ment of our Swed-
ish churches.

Concerning the
two travelers' visit
to Versailles, Tes-
sin writes, that
Louis XIV "let the honor come to me that all waters in the
whole Versailles have played for me." Europe's greatest
landscape gardener, Le Notre, conducted him "from
one pleasure-grove to another," and Tessin declares,

The pulpit in Uppsala Cathedral, carved

by Burchardt Precht after drawings by

Tessin the Younger

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 75

he "can never fully describe their magnificence." The two
Versailles artists, Charles Lebrun and Berain, the latter
Tessin's ideal in the field of ornamentation, also interested
him keenly. It is certain that what he learned there was of
the greatest moment, both in the construction of the Palace
and the designing of the parks which Tessin afterwards laid
out in Sweden. In Rome, where he proceeded from Paris,
Tessin again imbibed among palaces and baroque churches
that disposition for bigness which was to characterize his
greatest work, the Royal Palace, and immediately after his
return to his native country he began, 1688, the drawings for
the north facade. Before undertaking the construction of
the Palace in earnest, however, he erected several buildings
of great value to Swedish architecture, for example, Gustavi-
anum in Uppsala and Steninge in Uppland. This beautiful
castle, which was built at the close of the seventeenth cen-
tury, became a model for many of the Swedish mansions
erected during the eighteenth century and was called "a
villa in the noblest sense of the term." Its dimensions were
moderate, but the architectonic form all through was per-
fect. He fitted out his own house, now the Governor-
General's Palace in Stockholm, with rare taste and beauty,
and the magnificent salons were decorated in the pompous
and elegant style of Louis XIV, often with features borrowed
from the above-mentioned Berain. The Tessin palace was
presented by King Gustavus III to the city of Stockholm to
serve perpetually as the official dwelling of the governor-
general. Of special interest is the construction of the court-
yard, where the background consists of a loggia of con-
tracted perspective. When we see this, we are reminded of
the tendency to stage effects which constituted a character-
istic trait of the baroque. Tessin had a European reputa-
tion, and his plans for the rebuilding of the Louvre, which
were shown to Louis XIV in 1705, were the source of admir-
ation in France. We may be glad, however, that his pro-
posal, like that of Bernini, was not accepted, and that Les-
cot's Louvre was allowed to stand.

The old royal palace, where Gustavus Vasa and Gustavus

76 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Adolphus had lived, had fallen more and more into decay
during the seventeenth century. As noted above, Nikodemus
Tessin the Younger was commissioned by Charles XI to
build a new one, and the north wing was already completed,
when a fire broke out in May, 1697, at the very time when
the body of Charles XI was lying in state. Tessin then made
new drawings and immediately began the erection of the
new palace. Its massive walls had already risen to consid-
erable height when the building had to be discontinued; for
money and people were pouring out of the land because of
the war, while Charles XII led Sweden nearer and nearer
toward the brink of destruction.

In 1728, the year that Nikodemus Tessin the Younger
died, the work was again taken up, now directed by his son,
Karl Gustav, whose contribution to Swedish art was to be
of great import. Later the work was directed by Karl
Harleman, who was particularly active in behalf of the orna-
mentation; but during this time the progress of construction
suffered from lack of funds due to the unwise and poorly
planned offensive war against Russia in 174 1. At last, in
December, 1754, Adolphus Frederick and his gifted queen
could move into the new palace, although the northwest wing
was not completed until 1760. Lejonbacken (so named
after the bronze lions modeled by the Frenchman Foucquet
in Stockholm and set up in 1704) was completely laid out in
1830, and the Palace had then cost 10,500,000 rix-dollars,
an enormous sum when we consider the hard times in which
it had been procured and the current value of the money.

The Royal Palace is one of the most beautiful buildings
in the whole world. In simple, lofty grandeur the noble
square of the palace rises above the city. The enormous
quadrangle has four lower wings. The most imposing part
is the fagade opposite Norrbro, which is 217 meters long.
It is divided into three stories, with an entresol above the
lowest. The upper part of the windows is supported by
consoles, as was customary in the Roman neo-Renaissance.
A small balcony rests on the cornices of a stately Doric por-
tal. Two genii of fame are enthroned above, the door to

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The Royal Palace at Stockholm, designed by Nikodemus Tessin the

Younger

this balcony, an adornment which gives life to the stern sur-
faces. The roof slants inward toward the courtyard, and
the facades are crowned by a balustrade; hence the outer
roof, as in the Italian models, is not visible. On the side
facing Logarden, which is perhaps the noblest in its virile
beauty, Corinthian pilasters, resting upon a lower story in
rustic-work, run through the two upper stories, a feature of
the baroque style which is duplicated in the gigantic half-
columns of the central part of the south facade, forming a
kind of triumphal arch at the main entrance of the palace.
This side is ornamented, besides, with reliefs and four beau-
tiful bronze groups, representing the abduction of women,
modeled by Bouchardon. The west fagade is adorned with
huge caryatids and medallions of Swedish kings. On this
side lies the outer ballium with its two wings ; the south, the
Governor's wing; the north, that of the Palace Guard, where
Gustavus III, on an August day in 1772, persuaded the offi-
cers to take part in the revolution.

The imposing main stairway leads up from the west vault,
illuminated by tasteful bronze lanterns. These are sup-
jported by fat cupids, modeled by the Frenchman, Jacques-
Philippe Bouchardon, according to the prevailing French

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Great Gallery in the Royal Palace at Stockholm

method of sculpture, and instinct with life and grace. The
grand staircase is flanked by Ionic and Corinthian columns
and pilasters. Nor are the effective perspectives, so fre-
quent in baroque architecture, missing. Kronberg's paint-
ings, executed in the decade of 1890, are fitted into the
ceiling. The galleries and halls of the palace are furnished
in the heavy elegance of the baroque style, with paintings on
the ceilings, richly designed groups in plaster of Paris rest-
ing on the mouldings, and with heavy gilding. Other rooms,
with their decorations often carved in masterly fashion out
of unpainted wood, their shell ornaments, and lattice designs,
indicate the rococo which in Sweden, however, had hardly
time to become established, before the so-called Gustavian
style (Louis Seize) with its returning classic features and its
white and gold was generally adopted. The Palace pos-
sesses a collection of uncommonly beautiful Gobelin tapes-
tries, which, paneled in the walls and depicting in subdued
colors French gallant episodes, formed a rich background
for the festivals at Gustavus's court.

A SURVEY OK SWEDISH ART 79

Rococo door in the Queen's Red Salon in the Royal Palace, by Adrien

Masreliez

The palace courtyard with its huge gate-frames of rustic-
work conveys a strong impression of simple greatness. The

80 SCANDINAVIAN ART

south portion of the palace is occupied by the hall of state
and the Slottskyrka, and beautiful flights of steps lead up to
both of these from the vault underneath. The Slottskyrka,
with its vault adorned by Taraval's ceiling painting, its pom-
pous pulpit, and its theatrical but effective altar-piece, where
Christ in the Garden appears between rent temple-facades
in high plaster-relief by Larcheveque, is excellently adapted
to the magnificent building of which it is a part. This Palace
was built with Herculean efforts, worthy the Sweden of
Charles XII; it is as big as the bold dreams in Sweden's
golden age of power, when its foundations were laid; its
construction was continued with the most tenacious persever-
ance, when the soap-bubble of external greatness burst; and
finally it was beautified with exquisite art, when Sweden
began, for the first time, to occupy an important place in the
science and culture of Europe.

The foundations of the so-called Karolinska Kapellet at
Riddarholm Church, which became the final resting-place of
the Palatine Charleses, were laid according to drawings by
the elder Tessin, but the structure as a whole is the fruit of
Nikodemus Tessin the Younger's studies in Italy. It is our
country's most notable edifice in the baroque style. Smooth
sandstone columns with Doric capitals embrace the semi-
circular windows, and an attic with round windows rests
upon a triglyphical architrave. The chapel is built of sand-
stone and is covered by a copper-clad cupola. This is sur-
mounted by a golden crown, supported by a pedestal of ex-
ceptionally tasteful form. Vases and memorial tablets, re-
liefs and martial emblems are found in great numbers, and
upon a cloud reproduced in stone is seen a genius holding a
crown. The chapel contains the Sarcophagus of Charles
XII, where the club and lion's skin indicate the Herculean
work of his life. This sarcophagus was fashioned in
Amsterdam in 1735 after drawings by Nikodemus Tessin
the Younger. An attempt was made in 19 16 to replace it
by a new one — a grotesque idea. The building was com-
pleted in 1743 by Karl Harleman.

An architectural school grew up, fostered in the concep-

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

Karolinska Kapellet, the Carolinian mortuary chapel in
Riddarholm Church in Stockholm, designed by Tessin
the Elder, but not completed until 1743

tions of Tessin; the indigenous crafts received guidance from
foreign artists; and, encouraged by the court, cabinet-mak-

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A yellow soup tureen from the Rorstrand factory in the latter
part of the eighteenth century. Now in the National Museum

ing, manufacture of glazed ware and porcelain, and other
industrial arts, began to flourish. In 1726 the Rorstrand
faience factory was established, but the product did not
become satisfactory until 1758, when the shops of Marie-
berg entered into competition. The yellow, round faience
soup tureen, which is reproduced here, comes from the fac-
tories of Rorstrand. The faience of both Marieberg and
Rorstrand was much admired at the beginning of the twen-
tieth century by those interested in art. Not only its dec-
orative form, but also the somewhat coarser and more virile
character of its surface, proved attractive as compared with
other rococo porcelain. The Frenchman, Guillaume Thomas
Raphael Taraval the Elder, who had been called to decorate
the Royal Palace with ceiling paintings and lintels, through
his instruction in drawing to young Swedish art students,
gave the impulse for the birth of the Academy of Arts, 1735.

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Chest with veneer of beech, birch, and maple, bronze fixtures, and

marble plate. Made by Georg Haupt, about 1779. In Nordiska

Museet at Stockholm

During the whole of the eighteenth century the Royal Palace
was the center of Swedish art.

In the gloomy years of war in the beginning of the
eighteenth century, Swedish culture, especially art, declined,
and it was a long time before the country recovered from the
effects. The Carolinian age was satisfied with crudely exe-
cuted paintings that often revealed the hand of the artisan.
It was a Hamburg artist, David von Krafft, summoned to
Sweden by his maternal uncle Ehrenstrahl, who fixed on can-
vas, in austere, dark portraits, the features of the inflexible
warrior-king, both as a young, rather gawky, fighter, and as
an older man with bald crown and hair whitened
by adversities.

Among the artists and portrait-painters who were active
in Sweden and painted the celebrated men of the first part of

SCANDINAVIAN ART

the eighteenth century was Martin Meytens the Elder, born
at the Hague. His straightforward and dignified portrait
of the author of Atlantica, Olof Rudbeck the Younger, is
a good type of a gentleman from Sweden's Period of Great-
ness. His son, Martin van Meytens the Younger, was born
in Stockholm but spent most of his time abroad; in France
and Austria he painted members of the very highest society.
Besides his elegant Portrait of the Artist in the Academy of
Arts, we have in Sweden from his hand the stately group
The Grill Family.

Georg Desmarees was also a pupil of the Elder Meytens.
Among his portraits may be mentioned those of Nikodemus
Tessin the Younger and Arvid Horn in a rather pompous
style, and the more austere and realistic picture of the wife
of Admiral Appelbom, painted in 1723 and now in the
National Museum. Mikael Dahl chose his field of opera-
tion in England. Dahl was a pupil of Ehrenstrahl, but dur-
ing his residence in England he came under the influence of
the Van Dyck portraits which he saw there. A softer ele-
gance is noticeable in the almost feminine portrait of

The pleasure palace China, near Stockholm, designed by Karl
Fredrik Adelcrantz

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Charles XII — not painted from life, however, — which is
now in the National Museum. This influence is still more
apparent in Dahl's paintings of women, a good example

being the portrait, now pre-
served in Gripsholm, of the
young Queen Anne of Eng-
land, pale, with dark, waving
locks and a loosely fitting,
low-necked silk dress.

During the middle of the
eighteenth century, the honest
portrait-painter Olof Arenius,
a pupil of David von Krafft,
was active in Sweden. The last
type of the somewhat bom-
bastic German-Italian baroque
style was Georg Engelhard
Schroder. As portrait paint-
er of the court, he put on
canvas the ruddy, swollen
features of Frederick I. The
fashion painter of the period
1 740-1 760 was Johan Henrik
Scheffel, among whose numer-
ous portraits those of Linne
and of the poetess Hedvig
Charlotta Nordenflycht de-
serve special mention.

Karl Fredrik Adelcrantz is
perhaps the most eminent
architect during the latter
half of the eighteenth century.
The "patriotic goddesses of song" to whom Gustavus III
dedicated his favorite creation, the Opera, had their habi-
tation erected by Adelcrantz. Arvfurstens Palats is the Tor-
stensson palace rebuilt by Erik Palmstedt — who had just
finished the Exchange — and gives a picture of how the old
Opera House looked. But the old auditorium, whose walls

The tower of the Storkyrka
in Stockholm, rebuilt by
Johan Eberhard Carlberg

86 SCANDINAVIAN ART

were decorated by Adelcrantz with exquisite taste in white
and gold, and which in their day had vibrated both with the
"report of Anckarstrom's pistol"* and the silver tones of
Jenny Lind, is gone forever. Adelcrantz made the draw-
ings for Norrbro, of which the foundation-stone was laid
in 1787, and which was completed in 1806. Its mighty
arches, constructed of granite blocks, emphasize by their
massive beauty the thinness and poverty of our modern
iron bridges. The Adolphus Frederick Church in Stock-
holm is built after plans by Adelcrantz like an equibranchi-
ated Grecian cross with cupola, but the small dimensions and
especially the consequent low position of the windows
weaken the impression which the visitor experiences in sim-
ilar Italian churches. In the luxuriant verdure of Drottning-
holm park gleams the small, red-painted pleasure palace,
China, its rococo forms intermingled with Chinese orna-
ments. At the time when it was built (1763) Chinese por-
celain, then called East Indian, was in great vogue, and so
was China's industrial art in general, for it harmonized in
several respects with the super-refined, sumptuous taste of
the rococo. The coquettish pleasure palace, a plaything for
adults, was also a creation of Adelcrantz.

The Storkyrka in Stockholm, which had been rebuilt by
Johan Eberhard .Carlberg, was completed in 1743. The
tower is one of the most tasteful and beautiful in the church
architecture of the period.

*A reference to the murder of Gustav III by Anackarstrom, 1792.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH INFLUENCES IN THE
GUSTAVIAN AGE

IT was inevitable that Swedish art, during the reigns of
Frederick I, Adolphus Frederick, and Gustavus III,
should be stamped with French characteristics. The
temper of the age, the confirmed French sympathies of
Louise Ulrica and Gustavus III, as well as the influence of
Nikodemus Tessin the Younger's son, the discriminating art
patron, Karl Gustav Tessin, sufficiently explain this move-
ment. Nevertheless, the close of the eighteenth century
gave expression to many of the most distinctive traits of
the Swedish temperament: festive exuberance, a taste for
display and pomp and, underneath it all, a lightheartedness
tinged with sadness such as we find in Bellman's songs.
More important than the external influence of patrons and
princes was the fact that during all this time artists directed
their attention toward Paris, availing themselves of the
opportunity to use the excellent French teachers and to
acquire that firm technique which was the backbone of con-
temporaneous French art.

The first Swedish painter to become known in Paris was
Gustav Lundberg, whose pastel paintings — a genuinely
rococo form of art — won the admiration of his time. The
portrait of a lady, which is reproduced here, is unfinished
but, nevertheless, charming. It is that of Mile. Hanck, later
the wife of Assessor Schroder, who "because of her beauty
was received by Her Majesty Louise Ulrica, who provided
for her education." This lovely lady, painted just before
1750, has often been depicted by Lundberg's crayons, but

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of the wife of Assessor Schroder, unfinished pastel by Gustav
Lundberg, in the Academy of Art at Stockholm

never more beautifully than in this portrait. The technique
of the pastel brings out the softness of a coquettish woman's
face, glancing roguishly from beneath the broad-brimmed
straw hat. It is reported that Lundberg was wont to fall
in love with his model, and that he then painted his very
best, and if so, we may assume from this portrait quite a
tender passion. Lundberg was accepted in Paris as early

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 89

as the third decade of the century and studied with the
famous Venetian woman pastel-painter Rosalba Carriera,
who is excellently represented in our National Museum,
notably by the pastel portrait of the Swedish-born Roman
senator, Nils Bielke, in typical rococo colors, blue and silver.

Lundberg was in vogue at the court, where the young
Swede had the opportunity to initiate the exiled Stanislaus
Leczinski, father-in-law of Louis XV, into pastel-painting.
His reputation was established when Karl Gustav Tessin,
during the years 1 739-1 742, guarded the interests of Sweden
at the French court and of Swedish art among artists and
art dealers. Tessin procured for Lundberg a place in the
French Academy of Painting, from the members of which
the Count had ordered several portraits of his beautiful
young relative, Froken Charlotte Fredrika Sparre, then a
resident in Paris. Karl Gustav Tessin himself had had his
portrait painted in excellent manner by Lundberg; the pic-
ture is now in the possession of Baron Bo Leijonhufvud.
Lundberg has also painted a fine portrait of his colleague
Boucher.

During his sojourn in Paris, Tessin purchased pictures by
almost all prominent contemporary French painters, espe-
cially by his favorite Boucher, but also by Lancret, Chardin,
and others. This Swedish aristocrat, with his inherited taste
and his intense interest in art, through these purchases of
French and, not less, Dutch masterpieces, laid the founda-
tion for the collection of paintings, engravings, and sketches
in the National Museum.

Still more illustrious than the position of Lundberg was
that occupied in the metropolis by Alexander Roslin. From
the middle of the eighteenth century, Roslin was the painter
of high society in Paris, and he amassed a large fortune by
his portraits of the Parisian aristocracy. From the year
1756 dates the charming potrait of Baroness Neubourg-
Cromiere, so fresh and typical of the time, with the black
half-mask in one hand and the fan in the other, the dainty
figure dressed in a light silk gown. Many Roslin connois-
seurs consider this painting the artist's masterpiece. "Qui

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Baroness Neubourg-Cromiere, by Alexander Roslin. Owned by
Alfred Berg, Stockholm

a figure de satin doit etre peint par Roslin," was the com-
ment in France. Such a silky smooth face he has painted
in the superb portrait of Himself with his Wife. The
beautiful Suzanne, who was a French artist in pastels, is busy
finishing a portrait. Her peach-colored complexion is
enhanced by the light-green silk of her dress, and the fea-
tures are refined by a touch of gentle dreaminess. He has

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

Portrait of the Artist and His wife, Painting in Pastel, by Alexander Roslin.
At Fano in Uppland

immortalized himself, behind her, smiling with that stereo-
typed smile of a man of the world which was so character-
istic of the rococo and of his whole art.

92 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Roslin was famous for his great ability in reproducing silk
and satin and for creating a general impression of elegance.
For his defective reproduction of character he was violently
attacked by Diderot, who in the sixties wrote brilliant criti-
cisms on the Salons, the annual art exhibitions. During a
visit to Russia in 1775, Roslin had the opportunity to paint
the Empress Catherine and the great men of Russia. The
portrait of Catherine was considered a good likeness, but
the noble lady herself maintained that it made her look like
"a Swedish kitchen maid." His admirable head of the
elderly Linne, in the Academy of Sciences, seems to chal-
lenge to a certain extent the censorious remarks of Diderot,
for the features of the venerable old man beam with kind-
ness, and his clear eyes, which had been permitted to "peep
into God's secret council-chamber," sparkle with that bright
outlook on life which was one of the most charming traits
of the eighteenth century. As an excellent example of drap-
ery painting the splendid Portrait of Gustavus III at Grips-
holm occupies a high place. The portrait emphasizes the
weak, almost effeminate quality of the King's figure. Gus-
tavus III is dressed in a bluish-violet costume worked in
silver and wears an ermine mantle. Roslin has often
painted Gustavus and his brothers, and has, in a masterly
way, reproduced the old acetous visage of Louise Ulrica,
at the time when the Queen, on unfriendly terms with her
son, was designated by the insolent members of the court
as the lady "beyond the fence." The lustrous side of the
famous Swede's art appears in the picture of Gustavus III
and his brothers, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon in
177 1. This is a brilliantly painted picture of the three ele-
gant princes, who in their gold-embroidered coats, their
breasts gleaming with stars and decorations, discuss the plan
of a campaign, while with obliging condescension they turn
their smiling faces toward the spectators. C. R. Lamm in
Nasby has the largest number of Roslin paintings in any
private collection.

Nils Lafrensen the Younger spent the time from 1760-
1790, with the exception of a few years, in Paris where he

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 93

Three Women Musicians, gouache by Nils Lafrensen the Younger. In the
National Museum at Stockholm

was known under the name of Lavreince. His art also was
to an exceptional degree Parisian. He had in common with
Fragonard a wide range of subjects, though he was far from

94 SCANDINAVIAN ART

equalling him either in power to express the storms of pas-
sion or in the brilliant brush work in which this master of
rococo was preeminent. It was in salon pictures that Lafren-
sen excelled. He was most at home in the beautiful Louis
seize rooms, where the windows went down to the floor, so
that one might see more of nature which Rousseau had just
taught people to admire, where the gobelin covered chairs
and sofas with oval backs and straight legs were occupied
by charming countesses and baronesses, who dogmatically
discussed chemistry and physics, the rights of man, and not
least, the philosophy of love. Among these pictures from
the world of salons, which were often reproduced in copper
engravings after paintings by Lafrensen, the following well-
known engravings deserve special mention: L'assemblee au
salon, a representation of that pleasant social life which
flourished during l'ancien regime, and, Qu'en dit monsieur
l'abbe? where the advice of a gallant abbot is sought in a
question of taste concerning dress, this important matter
being decided, according to the custom of the time, at the
morning toilet of the young lady.

Lafrensen preferred to paint in gouache. One of Lafren-
sen's most beautiful gouache paintings is that in the
National Museum, representing Three Women Musicians,
who sit in a room of the Gustavian style decorated with light
green draperies. His women have a feminine grace, and
the small scale common in his pictures gives a stamp of in-
timacy to these amiable sheperdesses of the salon, who
laughingly tell one another their secrets, compare their-
charms, and revel in the tortures of their admirers. Lafren-
sen did not return home to settle in Sweden until 1791. He
then occupied himself for the most part with miniature
painting. Next to Hall, mentioned below, he is our fore-
most miniature painter. Among his portraits the gouache
of Gustavus III in a Swedish costume of red and black is
best known.

In miniature painting a Swede, Peter Adolf Hall, won,
during the seventies and eighties, the greatest fame, and was
called in Paris, where he made his home, the "Van Dyck of

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

Portrait of Fru Hall with Sister and Daughter. Miniature
signed "hall, 1776." In the Wallace Collection in London

miniature." His miniatures of contemporaries, painted on
ebony, gained general approbation because of his firm and
light touch. In the National Museum are preserved his
portraits of Gustavus Ill's friend the Countess d'Egmont,
with refined features wasted by illness; his broadly painted
Portrait of Himself; and the excellent picture of Sergei in
Swedish costume. The miniature of Fru Hall with Sister
and Daughter was purchased for 19,000 francs for that
unique collection of eighteenth century art, the Wallace Col-
lection in London.

Miniature art was very popular during the whole of the
eighteenth century. It appealed to the prevailing taste for
the pretty, and at the beginning of the century was much
used on the snuff-boxes which were so fashionable at the
time. During the latter half of the same century, the period
of tender declarations of love and friendship, the collecting
of miniature portraits became a mania.

96 SCANDINAVIAN ART

The man who may be said to have been the real creator
of the Gustavian style was the architect, Jean Erik Rehn,
who, after studies in France, adapted the style of Louis XVI
to our conditions, and exerted an excellent influence through
his designs for Haupt's furniture and Rorstrand's porcelain.
His fine taste is especially noticeable in Louise Ulrica's
library at Drottningholm, which was fitted up by him.

Among the many excellent artisans in Sweden during the
eighteenth century, the royal court cabinet-maker, the car-
penter-artist Georg Haupt occupies the first place. He
was born and died in Stockholm, but received his education
in France and England. Bureaus, writing-tables, and secre-
taries, executed by Haupt in the Gustavian style and inlaid
with wreaths, flowers, musical instruments, or cupids,
aroused the greatest admiration during his life-time, and
are now in constant demand by Swedish collectors. His
masterpiece de luxe was the gigantic cabinet for minerals
which was presented by Gustavus III to the Prince of Conde
and is now preserved in the castle of Chantilly. With res-
pect to taste and technical perfection of room-fittings and
furniture, it is doubtful whether any age can compete with
the artificers of the seventies and the eighties of the eight-
eenth century. Even when compared with the larger coun-
tries possessed of old culture, Sweden occupies a very high
place in this field.

Karl Gustav Pilo, in his unfinished but magnificently beau-
tiful Coronation of Gustavus III, now in the National
Museum, has executed a masterpiece in the art of color.
The painting — three meters high and five and a half meters
long — is extraordinarily well composed. The sunlight plays
upon the gilded pews carved after drawings by Tessin the
Younger, and is refracted in the white silk and violet velvet,
giving a vibrating life to the great ceremony in the Stor-
kyrka. It is taken at the moment when Archbishop Beronius
and Lord High Chancellor Count Horn hold the crown over
the head of Gustavus. Pilo lived for a long time in Den-
mark, where, about 1770, he was for two years the director
of the Academy of Art. His unusually fascinating portrait

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

The Coronation of Gustavus III, unfinished painting by Karl Gustav
Pilo. In the National Museum at Stockholm

of the doll-like form of Sofia Magdalena, which stands out
in a soft clair-obscure with something of an aristocratic fowl
in her eyes and in the position of her head, testifies to his
great gift as a colorist.

SCANDINAVIAN AkT

Sofia Magdalena, by Karl Gustav Pilo. In the collection of Count
von Rosen

Per Krafft the Eldei-j born in Arboga, studied under Ros-
lin in Paris and became afterward court painter in Warsaw.
After he had returned to Sweden, in 1768, he executed some
excellent portraits in clear, pleasantly harmonizing colors,
among which may be mentioned that of Emanuel Sweden-

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

The Mechanic Daniel af Thunberg, by Lorens Pasch the Younger, in
the National Museum at Stockholm

borg and the bright-tinted picture of Bellman with the Lute,
in the Gripsholm collection.

The portrait painter Lorens Pasch the Younger was the
most eminent of the well known Pasch family of artists. He
was born and died in Stockholm. Lorens Pasch the Younger
became a pupil of Pilo in Copenhagen and of Boucher in
Paris. A pastel of Gustavus III, a faithful picture of the
elderly pastel painter Gustav Lundberg, both in the Acad-

100

SCANDINAVIAN ART

emy of Arts, and a good portrait of Louise Ulrica in
Rosersberg are among the best works of this industrious
artist. A rare firmness of character distinguishes the por-
trait Pasch made of the Mechanic Daniel of Thunberg.
Something of peasant ancestry and something of middle-
class uprightness and plainness is brought out in the picture
of this workman who had ennobled himself solely through
his own labor. The green ribbon of a Knight Commander
of the Order of Vasa stands out against the brown coat.

Danae and the Shower of Gold, by Adolf Ulrik Wertmuller. In the
National Museum at Stockholm

Adolf Ulrik Wertmuller was born in Stockholm of an
esteemed bourgeois family. He studied at the Academy of
Arts, and in the same year that Gustavus III was crowned,
set out for extensive travels abroad. He reaped greatest
benefit from his sojourn in Paris, where he enjoyed the kind-
ness of his relative Roslin, and himself acquired a good repu-
tation as a portrait painter. It was at the request of Gusta-
vus III that Marie Antoinette had a group picture of her-

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 101

self and her children painted by him. In 1786 she presented
the portrait to Gustavus III. With national pride it is signed
"Wertmuller suedois." In the last decade of the century
Wertmuller set out for North America, where he had the
opportunity to paint the great Washington. After a visit
to his native home, he returned to the United States and put
on exhibition, in 1800, in Philadelphia, the unusually charm-
ing picture of Danae and the Shower of Gold, which was
executed in the new classical tendency of the time. An
American patron of art has presented the work to the
National Museum in Stockholm. Wertmuller married in
America and died there in 18 12 upon an estate which he had
bought in Delaware, where Sweden possessed a colony in the
seventeenth century.

Per Horberg from Smaland, a self-educated artist who
studied a little in the eighties at the Academy of Arts in
Stockholm, attempting to imitate the academic painters of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, executed in a some-
what naive and stiff-handed fashion, a large number of altar
paintings, now preserved in the country churches of Oster-
gotland and Smaland.

Chardin's scenes from bourgeois life find a counterpart
in Sweden in the productions of Per Hillestrom the Elder.
His art is of varying value, now dry costume pictures of an
exclusively historical interest, now again well executed small
interiors from the better middle class homes in Stockholm :
a mother instructing her children, old women telling for-
tunes in coffee grounds, servant girls testing eggs against the
light, or fair friends giving each other their confidences.
Most frequently a touch of old-fashioned honesty, of joy and
comfort of home, are found in Hillestrom's paintings. The
preference of the artist for a moderate scale befitting his
themes is another good characteristic of his pictures.

A landscape painter who brought the new English concep-
tion of nature to Sweden was a nephew of the above-men-
tioned Haupt, a native of Stockholm, Elias Martin. In
adherence to the English school of painting, with its light
effects, coloristic foundation, and deeper feeling for nature,

102

SCANDINAVIAN ART

At the Embroidery Frame, by Per Hillestrom.
Fraenckel in Stockholm

Owned by Froken

Martin, who spent a long time in England, painted several
truly poetical landscapes, often of astonishing freshness and
with something of Gainsborough's clair-obscure. As a por-
trait painter, he appears to very good advantage in the pic-
ture of Bellman. Martin has designed the vignettes of the
latter's Temple of Bacchus and has, besides, engraved the
sketches for the well known book Journey in Italy, by the
art-philosopher and admiral-in-chief, Karl August Ehrens-
vard, in which the author sets forth, in brief, oracular terms,

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103

Landscape with Waterfall, by Elias Martin. In the National
Museum at Stockholm

his one-sided and neo-Classic but often ingenious opinions
about art, nature, and people. Both Martin and Ehrensvard
were friends of Sergei. For Augustin Ehrensvard, the cre-
ator of Sveaborg, Elias Martin had painted views of this
fortress, and had also acted as instructor to his son, Karl
August. His brother, the copper engraver, Johan Fredrik
Martin, is known for his Views of Stockholm in large out-
line etchings with handpainted water-colors of excellent
artistic effect.

104

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of the Artist's Father, by Karl Fredrik von Breda.
National Museum at Stockholm

In the

Karl Fredrik von Breda went to England in 1787 for the
purpose of study and there enjoyed the guidance of Sir
Joshua Reynolds. He painted the portrait of Sir Joshua
as an admission-piece into the Swedish Academy of Arts.
Breda, who is one of the country's very best portrait paint-
ers, had acquired in England a warm and extremely effective
treatment of colors. After his return, in 1796, the aristoc-

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 105

racy, who valued the noble bearing he gave to his portraits,
sought the services of the young artist. Besides his powerful
technique, his broad brush, and sense of the picturesque, he
brought from England that feeling for nature which char-
acterized the last years of the eighteenth century. His por-
trait of the actress Teresa Vannoni, painted with warmth
and breadth, reveals, through dress and conception, that the
times of Gustavus were past; now people gave themselves
up to nature-worship in the parks, where at the altars erected
to friendship they consecrated tender sighs to the moon and
stars. Breda has produced the most substantial and valuable
in Swedish painting of the first half of the nineteenth century.
His Portrait of My Father, painted 1797, with Spanish
cane and the tall black hat that came originally from the
Anglo-Saxon lands, indicates the invasion of romanticism,
and produces an almost ghost-like effect with its pale face
and its figure, wrapped in a wide, black, Spanish cloak
against the background of a dark, stormy sky. From an
artistic viewpoint, it is an important work. During his later
period his portraits often received an unpleasantly reddish
tint.

During the decade of 1790, Per Krafft the Younger, the
son of Per Krafft the Elder, painted his best portraits, es-
pecially that of the architect Deprez, now in the Academy
of Arts. He received guidance from the great David.
Krafft adopted a more and more inflexible method of paint-
ing during the last part of his extraordinarily long artistic
career.

SERGEL

THE first and greatest name in the plastic art of Sweden
is Johan Tobias Sergei. Born in Stockholm of German
parents — his father was a gold-embroiderer from Jena
— and educated in Sweden by French teachers, he received
his deepest art-impressions later in Rome from the old Greek
sculptures, which were the object of so much admiration
and not less of learned study, especially in Germany, during
the last decades of the eighteenth century. Sergei's indi-
viduality, however, was so strong that he was able to fuse
these different impressions in his art. He succeeded in
breathing warmth and life into his work, and was inspired
by the antique in a more profound way than was generally
the case with his contemporaries. For this reason his figures
do not become stif[ and cold imitations. Over the marble
lies the rosy shimmer of the days of Gustavus, supple
strength in the male forms and softness in the female, widely
different from the smoothness of the Italian Canova or the
magnificent but cold reconstructions of Thorvaldsen.

During the years of his apprenticeship under the French
sculptor, Pierre Hubert Larcheveque, he assisted the latter
with the large altar-relief in plaster of Paris, Christ in the
Garden, for the Slottskyrka. Sergei received, besides, the
opportunity to assist in the rough work on the statue of
Gustavus Vasa, unveiled 1774, and that of Gustavus Adol-
phus, unveiled 1796, neither very successful. In these statues,
Larcheveque was not on a par with the excellent contem-
porary French sculptors, but it must be admitted that, in the
eighteenth century, with its defective historical sense, it was

106

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

107

almost impossible to obtain a picture of "old king Gosta"
that was national and true to history. Larcheveque's great-
est distinction consists in having been the teacher of Sergei,
and, in 1758, when but a youth of eighteen, Sergei was
allowed to accompany his instructor to Paris. There, with-
out a doubt, he received strong impressions from Falconet
and Pigalle, the great French rococo sculptors, whose grace
and sensuous elegance were bound to exert an influence upon
the precocious young Swede. In 1767 Sergei went to Rome
and remained there until 1778. There the greatness of
antiquity was revealed to him partly by means of the previ-
ously mentioned scholarly currents in art.

The Faun, statuette in marble by Johan Tobias Sergei. In the
National Museum at Stockholm

In the year 1770 The Reclining Faun was finished. The
figure attracted general attention by its joyousness and stamp
of energy. Notwithstanding its small size — not quite a
meter in length — it produces a very striking effect through
its animation and its pagan, exuberant joy of life. There are

108 SCANDINAVIAN ART

rare unity and buoyancy in this splendid work of art. In
accordance with the custom of Bernini and the Italian-French
sculptors, the marble is polished. A short time later Sergei
modeled the hero-type Diomedes and began work on a
group, Cupid and Psyche, originally ordered by Madame du
Barry but acquired by Gustavus III, when the death of
Louis XV prevented her from purchasing the statue. The
theme is taken from the old significant myth about Cupid
who is obliged to leave Psyche after she has sought, out of
curiosity, to ascertain his origin and name. Psyche's trem-
bling before the inevitable and Cupid's majestic repellent
gesture are combined in plastic harmony. Kellgren wrote:

Behold, alas! in desperation,

Before the god of love she lies,

In pardon-seeking supplication

For slighting her belov'd's advice.
The magnificent group Mars and Venus was also modeled
in Rome, though carved in marble at a much later date. It
represents the goddess of beauty engaged in the battle about
Troy, as she sinks fainting into the arms of the god of war.
The contrast between masculine strength and feminine soft-
ness, the motif that was so popular with the neo-Renais-
sance and the rococo, appears here to excellent advantage.
Sergei returned home from Rome by way of Paris, where,
as an example of his art, he modeled his statue of Otryades
who, dying on the battlefield, inscribes upon his shield the
tidings of victory. This dramatic representation created a
lively sensation in the Academy where it was exhibited.
Among those present on this occasion was the famous sculp-
tor Pigalle, as also Pajou, Houdon, Chardin, and Roslin.
This work gained for Sergei admittance into the Academy.
Sergei returned to Sweden in 1778. On the way he vis-
ited London, where he met Reynolds. The classical treas-
ures that had been taken from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin
were not put on exhibition until 18 12; consequently Sergei
could not see them. He had no opportunity to see either
these works of sculpture or, for that matter, many of the
best Greek statues of the fifth and fourth centuries which,

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 109

Mars and Venus, marble group by Sergei. Owned by Count
A. F. Wachtraeister

according to the belief of our time, represent the culmina-
tion of classic art. It was the weaker neo-antique that Sergei
and his contemporaries tried to imitate. Fortunately his
art contains much of the good French traditions.

In 1780 the King ordered the Venus which bears the
pretty rococo head of Countess Ulla von Hopken, nee von
Fersen. In this figure Sergei has immortalized one of Kell-
gren's "three graces." For the statue of Gustavus Adol-
phus, Sergei modeled during the decade of 1780 the group

110 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Axel Oxenstierna Dictating to History the Deeds of the
Hero, a group which has only in our day been set up in its
right place at the base of the statue. The decorative genii
who bore aloft the monogram of Gustavus above the cur-
tain of the Opera, and have now been removed to the same
place in the new Opera House, also date from this period.
In another building, the Adolphus Frederick Church, also
the creation of Adelcrantz, Sergei executed a monumental
piece of work in moulded lead, namely the Memorial to the
Philosopher Rene Descartes, who died in Stockholm in 1650.
The theme of a genius lifting the veil of ignorance from the
globe and letting the torch of enlightenment flame over the
sphere was certain to make a strong appeal to Sergei, and
indeed this monument glows with life and possesses splendid
decorative qualities. Sergei executed also the altar-piece for
the same church, where The Resurrection of Christ is repre-
sented in high relief in plaster of Paris. Christ, a beard-
less youth of Grecian type, ascends toward heaven with out-
spread arms, surrounded by angels. The form-language of
the figures is classical, but the same is true of the first sculp-
ture of the Christian church. Yet the beautiful gigantic
relief is not Christian according to the conceptions of our
time.

In 1 783-1 784 Sergei had the opportunity to accompany
Gustavus III upon his travels in Italy. In Rome Sergei was
royal councillor in matters of taste, and among other things
expressed his most passionate delight over the recently dis-
covered statue of the sleeping Endymion, which the king
later ordered to be purchased. Two paintings in the French
section of the National Museum are a reminder of Gustavus'
visit in Rome, one of them by Desprez representing Gusta-
vus III Attending Christmas Matins in St. Peter's Cathe-
dral, 1783. Vapors of incense float about Bernini's bronze
baldachin, as Pius VI raises the holy vessel where the miracle
of transsubstantiation takes place to the music of the bells.
The other painting is by Gagneraux. It shows the King
and his entourage, among them Sergei, inspecting the won-
derful collection of sculpture in the Vatican, escorted by the

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART ill

Portrait of the Countess Charlotta Fredrika von

Fersen, nee Sparre. Marble bust by Sergei.

Owned by Baron Hopken

Pope. In Rome Sergei met the young Canova and Angelika
Kauffmann.

After his return home Sergei was employed chiefly in the
field of portraits. His splendid portrait busts and portrait
medallions of Sweden's most eminent men were highly val-
ued, and the admiration aroused by his noble art contributed
to elevate the standing of artists in the land. Particular
mention may be made of his realistic, strongly characterized,
bust of the Countess Charlotta Fredrika von Fersen, who as
a girl — Froken Sparre — had been with her relative Karl
Gustav Tessin in Paris, where several French artists had
reproduced her piquant features. Now, in 1787, she is rep-
resented as an aged grande dame, still so pleasing and beau-

112

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Gustavus III, portrait statue in bronze by Sergei.
On Skeppsbron, Stockholm

tiful beneath the becoming widow's veil that she fully
deserves to be a mother to those young ladies who enrap-
tured the Stockholm of 1780, the "graces" Ulla von Hopken
and Countess Lowenhielm.

Sergei several times perpetuated the figure of Gustavus
III, and succeeded admirably — not least in "the living Gus-
taviad in bronze" on the Skeppsbro at Stockholm's Quay,
giving artistic unity of conception to the complex nature of
this King, who bore, "the laurels of the theatre in powdered
hair strangely combined with the real, true ones." It is a
Swedification of Apollo di Belvedere, ordered by the citi-
zens of Stockholm in 1790 and set up in 1802 on the spot
near Svensksund where the King landed as victor. Among

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 113

the portrait medallions arc the genial countenance of Kell-
gren and the figure of Bellman, the wine-god of the North,
with vine leaves in his hair. In his pen sketches Sergei has
shown us the more intimate sides of the poet Bellman, in
his morning-after mood, and he has also made many draw-
ings of himself and his noted friends, the admirer of the
antique Karl August Ehrensvard, the Dane Abildgaard,
and many others who frequented the artist's hospitable
home. In general, his sketches and washes, at times gro-
tesque, but always executed with a marvelous sense of the
picturesque, constitute a very valuable complement to his
productions as a sculptor. Sergei died on the 26th of Feb-
ruary, 1 8 14. Active at a time when pedantic imitation of
the antique began to be considered as the highest art, he
succeeded, thanks to his strong, healthy, and sensuous nature,
in developing his personality so that he stands out as the
foremost artist our country has possessed, and occupies an
uncontested place of rank in the European art of his time.

THE TRANSITION PERIOD

UNDER the influence of neo-Classic ideas, Swedish
architecture, toward the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury, began to be dominated by antique forms in
the exterior of the buildings as well as in the interior dec-
orations. Meanwhile the materials employed became
poorer, while the power of invention lessened.

Olof Tempelman, a native of Ostergotland, built, in 1790,
the Chancery near Mynttorget, with its sober Doric temple
fagade. For Gustavus III, who lived occasionally in a little
idyllic wooden house at Haga near Brunnsviken, Tempel-
man erected the so-called King's Pavilion, which was com-
pleted in 1790. The French-born Jean-Louis Desprez, who
was to have built the giant palace Haga for Gustavus III
in historical classic style, got no further than the foundation,
which was laid in 1786. In the same period Uppsala Con-
servatory was begun after drawings by Desprez in the
Doric style. Desprez was one of Sweden's best painters
of stage decorations; especially beautiful were his decora-
tions for the opera Gustavus Vasa which was performed in
1786. Desprez has painted also the magnificently com-
posed pictures Gustavus III Attending Christmas Matins
in St. Peter's Cathedral (seepage no) — the artist had made
the acquaintance of the King on his Italian journey — and
the Naval Battle of Hogland with cheering marines amidst
huge fluttering sails. The latter has been preserved in
Rosersberg Castle. Louis Adrien Masreliez, son of Adrien
Masreliez, born in Paris, painter, art-theorist, and decor-
ator, has decorated a number of rooms in the King's Pavil-

114

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115

Wall decoration in "Gustavus Ill's Divan"
Adrien Masreliez

at Haga , by Louis

ion at Haga with some excellent, neo-antique ornamental
friezes which call to mind Raphael or the loggias of Pompeii.
Though the architecture of the first years of the nine-
teenth century is marked by a certain aridness and frigidity,

116

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Salon in Rosendal Palace at Djurgarden, built by Fredrik Blom.

Furniture in the Empire style. Frieze, The Coming of the Asas, by

Hjalmar Morner

and though it suffers from a certain meagreness especially
with respect to material, nevertheless it does not lack dis-
tinction. Fredrik Blom built, during the decade of 1820, the
beautiful old Animal House near Lilla Nygatan in Stock-
holm, the Rosendal Summer Palace in Djurgarden park,
and the splendidly located Skeppsholm Church which has a
grandeur of form often lacking in the Swedish houses of
worship in the later nineteenth century. Karl Kristofer
Gjorwell was a son of the well-known author who has been
called "the patriarch of learned labors." In the Queen's
Pavilion at Haga and in the Military Hospital on Kungs-
holmen, especially in the latter, which was completed in
1834, he has attained that severe beauty which was the ideal
of the empire style.

Among Sergei's pupils none equalled the master, although
Johan Niklas Bystrom has executed some good work, and

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117

Statue of the actress Emilie Hogquist, by

Johan Niklas Bystrom. In the Dramatic

Theatre at Stockholm

especially his group The Sleeping Juno with the Child Her-
cules at her Breast has a touch of greatness that is doubly
refreshing in view of the prevailing taste for the banal and
the insipidly sweet. There is often something weak and
impersonal, however, in his female figures, and it cannot be

118

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Thor, marble statue by Bengt Erland Fogelberg.
National Museum, Stockholm

At the

denied that Swedish sculpture about 1850, even though not
compared with great names like Rude, Barye, or Schadow,
had about it something reminiscent of big, chalky caramels,
the sugar being predominant in the work of Bystrom and
the chalk in that of Fogelberg. While he lived in Rome,
Bystrom's happy, hospitable home was a center of Swedish
artists. The well known Bust of Bellman in Djurgarden,
unveiled in 1829, is from Bystrom's hand. He has made a
delightful little statue which is undoubtedly a representa-

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 119

tion of Emilie Hogquist in the role of Aventurine in The
Polka. It was in 1845 tnat tne fascinating and idolized
actress appeared in this play — the last in which she took
part — and enraptured the audience by her grace in the polka,
a dance which was entirely new at the time. She died the
following year in Italy.

Bengt Erland Fogelberg is noteworthy chiefly for his
efforts to find a plastic form for the gods of Norse myth-
ology. The question of employing themes from Norse an-
tiquity in sculpture was zealously discussed at the begin-
ning of the century. Geijer wrote, in 18 17, a treatise
"Concerning the Employment of the Norse Myths in Fine
Arts" in which he said that these themes ought to be made
use of, but warned against formlessness and exaggeration.
He shows himself surprisingly far-sighted in his censure of
the prevailing unnatural imitation of the antique, not least
in the domain of painting, where the life element, color, was
ignored, and the figures resembled "painted stone images."
In the exhibition arranged by the Gothic Society in 18 18,
Fogelberg exhibited models for statues of Odin, Thor, and
Freyr, the latter being exchanged afterwards for Balder.
The statues were later cut in marble, and now stand on the
staircase in the National Museum. A somewhat theatrical
pose spoils the impression of Balder, and this is still more
true of Odin. Fogelberg has succeeded best with Thor; he
is a type of a Northern god, full of power and with conscious
pride in his bearing and yet with something of a peasant's
good humor about him. The statue of Gustavus Adolphus
in Gothenburg and Bremen, of Charles XIV Johan and
Birger Jarl in Stockholm, all three unveiled in 1854, are
well known works of Fogelberg. His art has a certain dry-
ness, and does not attract or charm like that of Sergei's, but
the new types which he succeeded, after much hard labor,
in giving form have been of importance in Swedish art.

Erik Gustav Gothe's rather tame art never rose to any
high artistic level. The dull statue of Charles XII in Kungs-
tradgarden in Stockholm, unveiled in 1821, and the perfor-
ated spire of the Riddarholm Church, for which he made

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SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Ruined Castle, by Karl Johan Fahlcrantz. In the collection of
Thorsten Laurin

the drawings, are his best known productions. The latter
was erected after' the beautiful old spire had burned
down.

In general, it may be said that the first decades of the
century are characterized by a prevalence of dilettantism and
extremely low standards in art. After the splendor of the
Gustavian age, Sweden had a period of self-satisfied and
Philistine mediocrity in the field of painting. All the more
absurd, therefore, seem the bombastic eulogies of the
Academy of Arts, when it condemns or comments in high-
sounding phrases the feeble art products of the time.

In Alexander Laureus, who was born in Abo and died in
Rome, we notice an agreeable change from the usual poorly
depicted allegories and the still more tedious "historical"
paintings of the time. In The Dance, executed in 1814, one
of Laureus's best pictures, the artist experiments with the

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 121

effects of candle light, a problem in illumination with which
he was much engrossed. The prevalent conditions at the
ball seem to be very simple, unpretentious, and even naive,
but the fresh-colored beauties in their simple white flutter-
ing dresses are enjoying it thoroughly, while the partners
in their tight-fitting garments hesitate between "Astrild"
and the goblet, as the punch-glass was so grandiloquently
called in those days. The cold, tame allegories and the
often wooden portraits of the highly esteemed Stockholm
artist Fredrik Westin and his colored and sweetish nude
figures, bedaubed with "Professor Westin's human paint,"
aroused the enthusiasm of his contemporaries, a fact which
does not speak very well for their artistic judgment.

Karl Johan Fahlcrantz, born in Dalecarlia, was influ-
enced by the melancholy of Ruisdael and the evening sun-
light of Claude Lorrain, and became the painter of the
romantic landscape. A typical picture is The Ruined
Castle at the Foot of a Mountain. Warm, brown and
violet tones and a kind of universally musical atmosphere
are characteristics of this artist, who was so much admired
in his own time. Apropos of Fahlcrantz's paintings, Geijer
wrote the following profound words: "Painting is the art
of developing the inner light or of stealing the light of all
things, not only the external, but the light which beams
from within. All good painting is soul painting."

The first half of the nineteenth century was a "harmless"
period for art in our land. Among the few architects of
any importance was Axel Nystrom the Elder. He revised
and carried out Tessin's plans for Lejonbacken — the north
passage to the Royal Palace, so called from its two bronze
lions — and attained a great effect by the use of excellent
material, smooth-cut granite, as well as by firm, dignified
lines. The Bazar on Norrbro, razed when the Riksdag
building was erected, was by Axel Nystrom.

Interest in art and the desire to purchase it were at this
time negligible among the general public, and the few artists
to be found lived by themselves in Rome as academic
fellows, industriously wielding the brush on pictures repre-

122 SCANDINAVIAN ART

senting Italian beggars and robbers, romantic opera-figures
placed in a dazzling evening light. The paintings are char-
acterized in general by a mixture of aridness, gaudy color-
ing, and minuteness of detail, with little individualization.
Naturally, there were in the whole group of those who made
their living by painting some men of talent who felt
oppressed by the small town stagnation in the art life of
Rome, where in reality only sculpture flourished, and where
Thorvaldsen and Bystrom were hospitable hosts for the
young Scandinavian painters. There lived in the twenties
the witty dilettante Captain Count Hjalmar Morner whose
Stockholm Sketches, it is true, cannot be compared in an
artistic sense with those of Daumier and Gavarni, but are,
nevertheless, full of amusing and typical features. They
picture gentlemen who in thick overcoats drink their warm
toddies in the simple Stockholm taverns of 1830, or quiet
tea circles with musical entertainment, or lively ferry-women
with strong arms and fiery temperaments. His paintings —
among them the frieze The Coming of the iEsir in the
Rosendal Palace — possess less interest. Considerably more
prominent as an artist was Morner's faithful friend and
comrade Sodermark.

Olof Johan Sodermark was, during the forties and fifties,
the best portrait painter in Sweden. When he was invited
to Rome by Bystrom, he had already distinguished himself
as a soldier and received the medal of honor for bravery
in the war with Norway in 18 14 — several painters of that
period were military men — and now aroused general atten-
tion by his carefully painted and delicately characterized
portraits. A combination of neo-Classic purity of form
and romantic sentimentality is found in a portrait, typical
of the time, of Bystrom' s friend Karolina Bygler in greyish
lavender silk dress with puffed sleeves, outlined against the
yellow satin of the sofa. Sodermark perhaps excelled most
in his portraits of men. The great men and women of
Sweden had their pictures painted by him. Among these
may be mentioned especially the portrait of Berzelius, the
conservative politician von Hartmansdorff, Jenny Lind as

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123

Portrait of Karolina Bygler, by Olof Johan Sodermark. In
the National Museum at Stockholm

Norma, and, finally, Fredrika Bremer — one of the last por-
traits that Sodermark painted.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, Paris was
not so popular among the artists as before. A Swedish
painter, however, Per Gabriel Wickenberg, made a great
success there. He died young, but managed, through the
study of nature and of the old Dutch landscapes, to educate
himself so that he became an artist of real merit, even
though he could not compete in originality with the French

124 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Moonlight after Rain, by Per Gabriel Wickenberg. In the National
Museum at Stockholm

masters, Corot and others, who were not held in high regard
at the time. In his winter motifs and in his Moonlight after
Rain, in the National Museum, he avoids the theatrical
features which spoil the greater part of the contemporaneous
landscape painting, and his pictures belong to the truest
nature descriptions- that Swedish art had produced up to
that time.

Gustaf Vilhelm Palm was the most esteemed landscape
painter among the Swedes who lived in Rome. His Italian
views have something harsh and glaring, but are animated
by his feeling for picturesque architecture. The reminis-
cences of Rome in 1840 became determinative of his long
artistic career. His landscapes from the Malaren valley
display a tone which reminds one of the Campagna and
Lake Albano. He was most successful in his Stockholm
view The Riddarholm Canal at the Middle of the Century
with Palmstedt's beautiful stone bridge over the canal — a
bridge, constructed in 1784 and razed in 1867 to make room
for that monster of bad taste which has disfigured the place
for half a century.

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125

The Nix and /Egir's Daughters, by Nils Johan Blommer. In the
National Museum at Stockholm

The animal painter Karl Wahlbom made an important
contribution to Swedish figure-painting. Wahlbom was
initiated into the old Norse sagas by his friend, the gymnast
and poet Ling, and drew the illustrations for Ling's poem
The iEsir. In his popular painting, The Battle of Liitzen,
1855, he shows his great ability to represent the different
movements of horses. His art marks a step forward in
technique. Nils Johan Blommer gave form to the themes
of the Norse folksong, and in his romantic painting The
Nix and iEgir's Daughters, 1850, in the National Museum,
he created a work full of poetic feeling, which — attractive
even to us — appealed in the highest degree to the tempera-
ment of the age. On the other hand, his well known Freja
Drawn by Cats, 1852, in the National Museum, is rather
too suggestive of a caramel-painting.

The Varmlander Uno Troili was the most prominent of
Sodermark's pupils, but an exaggerated distrust of his own
ability prevented him from taking the place he might have

126

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Fru Anne-Marie Hallstrom, by Uno Troili, in the National Museum
at Stockholm

filled. He studied in Italy, but learned most, perhaps, in
Paris. Troili's portraits have something firm and honest
in their execution, and the best of them show also an exqui-
site taste in the choice of color. A colored background
throws into relief his pictures of imperious squires and their
wives. During the fifties and sixties he was Sweden's best
portrait painter. His brush knew how to bring out the
monumental as well as the soulful. Among his works are

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 127

Secretary Myhrman, the finely characterized portrait of Fru
Anne-Marie Hallstrom (the mother of Professor I. Hall-
strom), with violet cap-strings against a black dress, painted
with the consummate skill which Troili lavished on his
draperies, and, finally, the charming picture of Fru Mont-
gomery-Cederhielm, executed in 1861.

VII

THE DUSSELDORF INFLUENCE. THE
HISTORICAL PAINTERS

THE decade following 1850 received its impress from
the painters who sought their education in Diisseldorf.
In this quiet little town on the Rhine there had been
formed a school of painters who tried to employ motifs from
contemporaneous life, and, like the seventeenth century
Dutch painters in genre, to depict peasant festivals, life in
country parsonages, weddings, and funerals. But in these
experiments there was always something of a stage effect,
of an altogether too obvious humor, while artistic consid-
eration was forced into the background by features designed
to catch the public eye with cheap effects. By its choice
of new subjects, however, and by pointing to the sur-
rounding reality^ the school became of great consequence,
and it would be an injustice to forget the reawakening of
public interest in art which, despite all, was due to the
"Diisseldorfians." The Norwegian-born Swedish lieutenant
Karl D'Uncker with his Pawnshop, his Gambling-hall in
Wiesbaden, and his Third Class Waiting Room has given
us characteristic types and personages of the fifties and
sixties, more valuable, to be sure, in an historical than in a
profoundly artistic way, but even from the latter viewpoint
deserving interest. Bengt Nordenberg exemplifies the
peasant genre of the school by his excellent Tithe Meeting
in Skane, a tableau vivant characteristic of the whole move-
ment. Ferdinand Fagerlin, who was born in Stockholm in
1825 and died in Diisseldorf in 1907, surpasses the other
members of the school in the artistic qualities of his ex-

128

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 129

Jealousy, by Ferdinand Fagerlin. In the National Museum at Stock-
holm

tremely detailed portrayals of the Dutch fishermen in their
home-life, which he represents with feeling and a technically
meritorious method. His beautiful and thoroughly well
executed Jealousy, in which a young Dutch sailor pays court
to a charming blonde, would perhaps have gained something
by the absence of the second, sad-hearted girl, who gives
the picture, according to the taste of our day, a touch of the
unpleasantly anecdotical; but with respect to technique and
color effect Fagerlin's production indicates an important
advance. His art, however, is quite naturally more German
than Swedish. August Jernberg, who was active during
the sixties and seventies, shows himself very sensitive to
color and for that reason more nearly on a par with the old
Dutch models. His street scenes from Diisseldorf and more
particularly his highly flavored and excellently painted fruit-
pieces and kitchen interiors have that richness and strength
of color which are often lacking among the Diisseldorfians;
therefore, his pictures are valued more than others from

130

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Borrower, by August Jernberg. In the Gothenburg Museum

this school. The genre painting The Borrower with a motif
from west Germany is a little masterpiece. A landscape
painter of marked individuality, though in some ways
typical of the fifties, at once superficial and possessed of
power that had a touch of genius, was a native of Ostergot-
land, Marcus Larson, who showed in his painting some of
the traits that Johan Nybom exhibited in poetry. He be-

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131

Landscape with Waterfall, by Marcus Larson. In the National
Museum at Stockholm

gan as a saddle-maker's apprentice. Then after years of
study in the Academy of Arts, travels at sea, and wanderings
in Norway, he began to paint pictures strongly influenced by
the Diisseldorf artists whom he studied. But he was perhaps
still more deeply affected in Paris by the old Dutch land-
scapes, especially those of Ruisdael, which he saw in the
Louvre. Larson infused his love for the wildness and
melancholy of nature into paintings where we can see the
waves surging, the lighthouse twinkling, and the waterfall
hurling its foam between the tall trunks of the pine trees,
while broken clouds scud across the sky. A distinct flavor
of the the?trical is undeniable. The best of his pictures,
however, bear evidence of great talent. His striving for
effect, together with an unbridled and inharmonious element
in his nature, prevented him, in spite of great promise, from
being thoroughly successful. Through his own fault, he was

132 SCANDINAVIAN ART

finally shipwrecked, both in his art and in his life. He
died in London in 1864.

During the reign of Charles XV, there was considerable
interest in Swedish art. The king, who was himself a
painter, encouraged and supported artists with a generous
hand. In his activity as a patron of art, the king received
much aid from his friend and teacher of painting, Johan
Kristofer Boklund, a native of Skane. Boklund, who had
made profound studies in Munich and Paris, had, as pro-
fessor at the Academy, the very best influence upon his
pupils, by whom he was especially liked because of his help-
fulness. His real field as a painter lay in the historical
genre — minor picturesque episodes in historical dress, such
as soldiers at their drinking bouts, marauders, and similar
things. Thanks to a rare capacity for work and a love of
art, his activity has been of very great importance, even
outside of his own artistic production from his position as
intendant of the National Museum and director of the
Academy of Arts.

The brother-in-law and nephew of Nystrom, Fredrik
Vilhelm Scholander, of Stockholm, soon became the leading
artist personality in architecture. The historical sense had
been more and more aroused in Europe; romanticism
turned people's thoughts to the Middle Ages, and a strong
interest in the Gothic style of building was manifested in
almost all the countries of Europe. In Sweden, the "his-
torical styles" came into use principally through the pupils
of Scholander. As a teacher at the Academy of Arts he
exercised a strong influence. All buildings at this time, even
those of a monumental character — -with the exception of the
National Museum — were finished in fine plaster coatings,
with decorations in plaster of Paris, in such a way as to
simulate stone. Such a facade looks dead beside one finished
in natural stone — although a well done plaster fagade, which
does not pretend to be anything else than what it is, has
both its raison d'etre and its beauty. Scholander's Syna-
gogue in Stockholm, completed in 1870, with Oriental
motifs deserves the approbation with which it was received.

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 133

It was the intention at first that he should erect the foremost
Swedish memorial building, the National Museum, but in
1849 the designs of the German architect Friedrich August
Stiiler were accepted in preference. Stuler was a pupil of
Schinkel and was born in Thuringia. In accordance with his
plans the stately structure was erected in the Renaissance
style and covered with grey and reddish limestone. The
decoration of the interior, however, was directed by Scho-
lander. The Museum was dedicated at the time of the
Exposition in Stockholm, 1866. Scholander was also of
great importance in Swedish art as a painter, musician, poet,
and draughtsman. His remarkable feeling for the orna-
mental, a field in which his imagination is inexhaustible, is
especially well brought out in his excellent sketches illus-
trating Fjolner's Saga, written by himself and published in
1867, as well as in other saga sketches with architectural
and decorative motifs.

About the middle of the century, Swedish sculpture was
represented by Qvarnstrom and Molin. It was a barren
period in art, and the monuments and statues produced in
considerable numbers during this time did not attain the
highest level. In general, they are characterized by a cer-
tain correct tediousness and a considerable portion of pose
and conventionality. Tegner in Lund, Berzelius in Stock-
holm, and Engelbrekt in Orebro by Carl Gustaf Qvarnstrom
were more the expression of the literary and historical
interest of the time than of the artistic, and the same may be
said of the somewhat theatrical Charles XII in Stockholm,
unveiled 1868, by Johan Peter Molin. On the other hand,
the bronze group The Belt-duellists, exhibited in the Paris
Salon, 1859, is by virtue of its dramatic quality and excellent
characterization a work of sculpture well fitted to adorn
the beautiful spot near the National Museum in Stockholm.
It is a truly original group with not only a Scandinavian
theme but a Scandinavian conception. Molin's Fountain
which was exhibited in plaster at the Exposition in Stock-
holm, 1866, and was later set up in Kungstradgarden, is
of great decorative beauty. Even though the different

134

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Indian Dancer, drawn by Egron Lundgren at a Festival in Lucknow,
1859. Owned by Froken Elsa Nordenfalk, Lovsta

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 135

groups of mermaids and water deities that mark the site
of Stockholm between Lake Malaren and the sea are not in
themselves perfect, nevertheless the whole work of art, with
its bold elevation and mighty sweep of form, makes a fine
impression, especially when seen against a blue summer sky
with the water spurting over the cochleated edge. It is a
fine impulse that leads men to adorn public places with an
artistically formed fountain, which in the midst of the din
and noise reminds us of the peace and harmony of beauty,
itself a treasure of beauty which every citizen may proudly
call his own.

Egron Lundgren, though born in Stockholm, spent most
of his time in Italy, Spain, and England, and has recorded
his artistic impressions in a number of brilliant letters.
Quite naturally, he found the atmosphere in Sweden cold
and depressing, but he continued to feel a warm interest in
the artistic development of his native country. His greatest
success was in water-colors, and his pretty and artistic small
sketches and water-colors often reveal new points of view.
His style, both in drawing and painting, is sometimes sug-
gestive of Gavarni. There seems to exist a family likeness
among all his coquettish Spanish women, but their easy
grace won them a well deserved popularity with the public
and the critics. Egron Lundgren was really a rococo
painter born too late. He utilized color to the utmost, and
it was through color that he was able to conjure up new,
fresh aspects of the worn out Italian motifs. During the
Indian Rebellion of 1858, Lundgren accompanied the
British army and painted some of his best things in oils as
well as in water-colors, one of them being The Spy in the
National Museum.

The foremost representative of landscape painting was a
native of Stockholm, Edvard Bergh. He, also, studied in
Diisseldorf, but developed a genuinely Swedish conception.
He preferred . to depict on large canvases landscapes of
middle Sweden, smiling- scenes, where tall birches are re-
flected in inland lakes, or where the cattle graze in the
pasture, and the sunlight filters in through the light green

136

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A Gate in the Birch Woods, by Edvard Bergh

foliage. Bergh's art was easy to understand and was well
liked. Its national stamp gives it an added value for us.

Johan Fredrik Hockert belongs to the painters whose art
does not easily grow old. We are often unjust toward the
products of a few decades ago. Living in the midst of a
reaction against the exaggerations or faults of which they
were guilty, we are prone to undervalue their merits. But

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137

A Girl from Rattvik, by Johan Fredrik Hockert. In
the Fiirstenberg collection, Gothenburg

when it comes to Hockert, we see with pleasure that even
during this period, which was so barren of great art, there
were artists who painted with life and spirit, and were able
to create something permanent and of real interest to poster-
ity. Such was the work of Hockert. His Lapland Chapel,
in the museum at Lille, The Interior of a Laplander's Hut,
in the National Museum, exhibited at the Paris Salon in
1857, and his Girl from Rattvik, in the Fiirstenberg collec-
tion, do not appeal either to the risible faculties or the tear
glands, like many contemporaneous pictures of folk life;
they picture life quite simply, but in a personal way and
with warmth and color. Hockert studied in Munich, which
soon forced Diisseldorf into the shade, and surpassed his

138 SCANDINAVIAN ART

teachers in proficiency, especially after he had developed his
technique during a sojourn in Paris in 185 1. There he
aroused attention and had the opportunity of selling to
French galleries. His art rises to greatness in his last pro-
duction, The Palace Fire 1697, one of the best paintings in
the Swedish section of the National Museum. High among
the flames we see dimly the casket of Charles XI, and in the
foreground the white-haired "Mother of the Charleses"
tottering along, supported by her grandchildren. There is
spirit and life in the thrilling action, and the picture is
painted with an unusual bravura, but it was chiefly through
his gift for coloration that he attained his prominent place
in the history of Swedish art.

The tendency toward the Old Norse, which already
existed in sculpture, and was further strengthened by newv
and zealous archeological studies, now received champions
in the field of painting also. Loki and Sigyn and Thor's
Combat with the Giants by Marten Eskil Winge do not now
seem so imposing as they are colossal in size, but they are,
nevertheless, remarkable illustrations of what the sixties
meant by national art, and Winge's energy and enthusiasm
in the execution of the Northern themes was admirable.

The man who found the artistic form for this interest in
Old Norse was August Malmstrom. His father was a peas-
ant carpenter near Medevi in Ostergotland, who with great
and touching sacrifice gave his son an education as an artist.
Malmstrom studied at the Academy of Arts in Stockholm,
in Diisseldorf, and in Paris. Both in himself and in his art
there was much of a substantial and genuine Swedish quality.
He was the right man to give form to the old sagas. In
1859 he painted in Paris a picture which is thoroughly Scan-
dinavian both in color and character, Ingeborg Receives the
Tidings of Hjalmar's Death; and about the same time
Malmstrom started on a theme with which he was to strug-
gle, in an artistic sense, his whole life. This was The Battle
of Bravalla, which is presented in two different productions,
both of them excellent. The earlier and more romantic
belongs to the Stockholm Municipal Building; the other in

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 139

Ingeborg Receives the Tidings of Hjalmar's Death, by August
Malmstrom. In the National Museum at Stockholm

Nordiska Museet is more realistic and more Northern in
its character. Through his pithy sketches for Fridthjof's
Saga and the Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, Malmstrom has
contributed in a still higher degree than by his painting to
give our people a true and full conception of our forefathers
during the Viking Age. ' He has also sketched episodes from
the Finnish War of 1808-1809, with an austere but appeal-

140

SCANDINAVIAN ART

ing faithfulness to nature. His series of oils painted in grey
tones illustrating Runeberg's The Grave in Perrho, which
were presented by the artist to the Technical School in Stock-
holm, occupy the first rank among these war pictures. There
is another side to Malmstrom, however, an element of
tenderness which is sometimes in the best sense child-like.
His Dance of the Elves, exhibited in 1866, belongs to the
happiest incarnations of folk poetry, while his chubby
Country Children show the humorous bent in his character.
During the nineties, Malmstrom pictured in a number of
excellent water-colors that combination of meagreness and
grace in the Swedish landscape which is so dear to our
hearts.

Poplars, by Alfred Wahlberg. Owned by V. Biinsow

The ideas of the Fontainebleau School were put into
practice in Sweden by Alfred Wahlberg, born in Stockholm
in 1843. He studied first in Diisseldorf, and among the
results of his studies there we find the magnificent composi-
tion, Landscape in Kolmarden, 1865, in the National
Museum. From the French painters in Paris he learned

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 141

how to look at nature in a simpler and more profound way,
and hereby a new element, difficult to define, entered into the
Swedish landscape art — the spiritual quality known as st'dm-
nhig. Moonlight scenes, groups of trees, and views had
been painted before; now the artists strove to paint the soul
of the landscape and to fix on the canvas a transient moment
so that it would produce in the spectators a concentrated
sense of evening repose, of the threatening power of a storm,
of the frosty clearness of an autumn day, or the torturing
melancholy of the rain. A slight theatrical aspect, a me-
mento of the Diisseldorf period, still remains in his large
Moonlight Landscape with a river, in the National Mu-
seum, although the French School already asserts itself.
The sureness and elegance of Wahlberg's art have contrib-
uted much to open the eyes of the public to a truer and more
intimate landscape painting. An unusually good example
of Wahlberg's lyrical conception of nature is a picture full
of sentiment known as Poplars.

Gustav Rydberg, himself a native of Malmo, painted the
lowlands of Skane and the beautiful country around Ringsjon
with a loving and discriminating touch. Olof Arborelius of
Orsa painted the luxuriant verdure of Dalecarlia and the
mining district Bergslagen with a freshness of handling
which increased with the years. Reinhold Norstedt pic-
tured the landscape of his native Sodermanland, its estates
and castles with parks, avenues, and pastures, often bathed
in the moonlight and suffused with a soft melancholy. A Mill
near Spanga, The Eriksberg Castle and A Summer Landscape
in Sodermanland, in the Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm,
belong to this phase of his artistic talent. He has also painted
Stockholm, however, once in a picture of gigantic dimen-
sions, A Summer Night near Stockholm Stream, the
property of the Stockholm Municipal Building, where the
mighty outlines of the Royal Palace may be seen in the
background. In his canvas The Norstedt Printing Office on
a Winter Afternoon, he has revealed that subtle beauty
which a twilight hour may lend even business buildings, iron
bridges, and street cars. Norstedt' s art is like its parent.

142

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A Mill Near Spanga, by Reinhold Norstedt.

Laurin

Owned by Carl G.

Everything wild and passionate is absent. He did not like
anything unfinished, and shunned what was rough as much
as what was sickly sweet. His pictures were small in size,
conceived in an artistic and well-rounded style, and painted
with an ardent, manly feeling, often with spirit, in spite of
the slow and careful execution of details.

During a residence of several years in France, Norstedt
became the one who appropriated to the fullest and deepest
degree the ideals of the Fontainebleau school an^ trans-
planted them to Sweden. Not only the view of nature but
also the purity of mind and dread of humbug, strife, and
turmoil, that were so characteristic of Corot, Rousseau,
and Millet, shine forth from the life and work of Norstedt,
and the same is true of the personal delicacy of feeling which
is found in these French artists, and also of their musical
timbre. As an etcher of landscapes Norstedt is our fore-
most representative thus far.

It is noted above that Munich began to take the first place
as a center of German art. Diisseldorf was outdone. The
historical painter Piloty in Munich was a popular teacher,

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 143

during the sixties and seventies, of that historical figure-
painting which was so much in vogue at the time, a field in
which the Frenchman Delaroche, in the thirties and forties,
and the Belgian Gallait, in the thirties, had won a European
reputation. Whereas the Diisseldorf paintings resembled,
in many respects, scenes from comedies, the products of the
last named artists call to mind well staged tragedies. There
is something vacuous and ostentatious in this art which had
its authorization as an opposition to the colorless art at
the beginning of the century. It was this hollow method of
treatment of the historical themes which made "historical"
paintings suspicious; for the main point is how a subject is
handled, whether it be a still life or a battle. At all events,
we understand our age better than any other. Historical
reconstruction will always be false, and our time paints an
overcoat better than an armor, just as the Middle Ages
painted an armor better than a toga. We tire most quickly
of archaizing art, i. e., that painting, which, using a stale
method borrowed from the old masters, seeks with a feigned
naivete to obtain the same touching effect which the latter
unconsciously gave their paintings.

Georg von Rosen received his education from Piloty in
Munich and even more from H. Leys in Belgium, who imi-
tated the archaic in Holbein's style. Rosen soon reached a
finished artistic development. He was born in Paris but
came to Sweden at the early age of five, and Paris, strangely
enough, was to be the art center with which he had least in
common. It might almost be said that Rosen in his art
realized just what the Munich school tried in vain to express.
The historical and universally human have in him been fused
into a unity. The sound, aristocratic art of Velazquez had
an influence in giving him his thorough technique. Rosen's
production has not been abundant, but it is of sterling
quality. King Eric's anguish of soul is reproduced in mas-
terly fashion in the large painting Eric XIV, Karin Mans-
daughter, and Goran Persson. Eric's scarlet garments
shine with royal splendor, and we see him wavering between
hate and love. On this canvas, signed 1871, monumental

144

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Eric XIV, Karin Mansdaughter, and Goran Persson, by Georg
von Rosen. In the National Museum at Stockholm

grandeur and exquisite color are united into a whole, and
the characters live their own lives woven of hatred, terror,
and love, but play no part for the spectator. The same
dramatic suspense js found in The Prodigal Son, in the
National Museum. Upon the ground, outside of a medieval
country home, with glowing evening skies in the background,
lies the ragged, despairing son on his knees before his
mother, who is just coming out upon the steps. In 1881, a
few years before The Prodigal Son, Karin Mansdaughter
Visiting Eric in Prison was put on exhibition in the Art
Museum in Copenhagen. The light from the tiny prison
window falls upon Karin's face. With beautiful eyes she
looks up to her gloomy husband. It is a great moment, but
full of bitter pain.

Rosen's etchings and sketches with themes from the six-
teenth century show an unusual ability to transport himself to
past ages. Among these are the copper etching The Chris-
tening and the masterly glass etching Ture Jonsson Returns

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 145

from the National Assembly in Vasteras. The artist is
perhaps most successful of all in portrait painting, a field of
art in which our time, with its sense of the individual, is much
interested. Very impressive and spirited is his Portrait of

Portrait of Self, by Georg von Rosen. In the Uffizi Gallery at

Florence

146 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Himself in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The portrait of
his father and that of Pontus Wikner are both among the
best productions of contemporary portrait painting. The
former pictures the old count and railroad builder in his
decorative fur coat, his eyes beaming with friendliness and
intelligence; and the latter, painted in 1896, several years
after Wikner's death, interprets the hunted, restlessly
searching expression of a countenance furrowed by thinking
and suffering of the soul. In his official portraits also Rosen
shows himself very eminent. That of Director General
Troilius with its mixture of ponderousness and kindliness
is a good example. The Portrait of Charles XV, with the
outstretched hand, is excellently characterized, as is also his
Oscar II, a picture which has a high value from a coloristic
viewpoint as well. Unfortunately, however, the latter has
been completely spoiled by subsequent retouching by the
artist. The monumental picture of Governor Baron af
Ugglas should be especially mentioned, as well as the strong,
slightly humorous head of A Farmer from, Sodermanland,
in the National Museum.

Rosen's best known canvas from the closing period of
the century was The Resurrection of Queen Dagmar, painted
in response to an order from Denmark and hung in Freder-
iksborg. Here the artist depicts the gentle queen of Valde-
mar the Victorious, who has died during his absence and
who comes to life for a moment, through a miracle, to bid
her husband farewell. The painting was completed in 1899.
For decades the artist strove to picture the inexorableness of
Fate in an allegorical painting called Sphinx. In the figure,
a lion with a woman's head, he succeeded in producing some-
thing of the very scent of a beast of prey, while the superbly
painted face, with the beautiful, hard mouth, the delicate
nose, which seems to be smelling blood, and the terror-strik-
ing look of madness and pain, bear testimony to his great
art and psychological insight.

Julius Kronberg, born in Karlskrona, in 1850, also ex-
perienced the influence from Munich. By a thorough study
of the technique of the masters, he attained sureness in

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147

The Nymph of the Chase and Fauns, by Julius Kronberg.
In the National Museum at Stockholm

means of expression and discovered a brilliant, luscious
coloring. He made his reputation by The Nymph of the
Chase and Fauns, purchased in 1875 for the National

148 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Museum. It shows his art from its best side. Here we
meet an unexpected boldness and a vivid color that had not
been seen before. The nymph in her white beauty against
the warm, yellow silk, the play of sunbeams on the tropical
foliage and, not least, the merrily grinning fauns, full of the
love of life, called to mind the joyous coloring of the seven-
teenth century. The following year Spring was painted,
representing a beautiful young woman who flies through
the air on a stork, surrounded by flower-strewing cupids.
In Saul and David the kingly form of Saul is one of the
artist's best figures, while the decoration of the royal hall
shows his exquisite taste and wide knowledge in the domain
of industrial art. Kronberg's greatest works, however, are
the ceiling pieces above the main stairway of the Royal
Palace. Of the three allegorical paintings, the first pictures
Svea surrounded by the symbolical figures of Commerce,
Agriculture, and Industry; the second portrays the rose-
colored form of Aurora ; while the third represents The
Ascension of the Soul. In a series of paintings with subjects
from Biblical history, Kronberg completed the decorations
of the cupola in the Church of Adolphus Frederick in Stock-
holm. The ceiling panels in the auditorium of the Dramatic
Theatre, representing Orpheus and the Muses, is distin-
guished by a magnificent composition, even though, like
several of his works, it suffers from a banal sweetishness
both in color and form. His portrait of the blind Professor
Hamberg and the strongly characterized portrayal of the
energetic aged profile of Consul Ekman show his many-
sidedness. Like Franz von Lenbach in Germany, Julius
Kronberg has made a large number of admirable copies
from Venetian and Flemish painters.

Within the domain of historical painting, which was more
and more neglected, Nils Forsberg, of Skane, after pro-
found studies in France, won distinction with his gigantic A
Hero's Death, a motif from the Franco-Russian War, and
was awarded a medal of the first class at the Paris Salon in
1888. The largest picture that Forsberg has painted up
to this time appeared at the International Exposition in

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

149

Paris in 1900. It represents Gustavus Adolphus before the
Battle of Liitzen, and has been presented to the Gothenburg
Museum, which is also in possession of Forsberg's Family
of Acrobats, a very skillfully executed figure painting.

French academic impressions from the seventies, which
were present in Forsberg's art, are found also in the work
of Gustaf Cederstrom, who was born in Stockholm in 1845.
His large canvas The Funeral Procession of Charles XII,
painted in 1878, is universally known. The original is now

The Funeral procession of Charles XII, by Gustaf Cederstrom.
In the National Museum at Stockholm

in Russia, but a copy came to the National Museum in 1884.
In this popular painting the interesting motif has been
treated with loftiness and grandeur. The period of Charles
XII has often been pictured by this artist, whose cold scale
of colors seems suited to the winter atmosphere that lies over
those stern and hard times. But there was enthusiasm also
beneath the austere surface, and in his Magnus Stenbock on
the 27th of September, 1709, placed in the Provincial
Assembly Hall in Malmo, he has demonstrated his ability
to express this as well. In Cederstrom's large painting

150 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Narva, in the National Museum, a product which is rather
unsatisfactory from a coloristic standpoint, the artist has
shown the first and most brilliant act of the drama of
Charles XII. Cederstrom's woman Salvationist trying to
convert some bar-room habitues is one of his best paintings.
Carl Gustaf Hellquist, who died in Munich in 1890, was
a painter of historical themes who received much apprecia-
tion in Germany, where he spent most of his time. He lays
great stress on archeological details, and is sober and dry
in his coloring, but has painted some good pictures whenever
he has avoided that theatrical strain which has tainted so
many historical paintings. He is most successful perhaps in
The Religious Discussion between Olavus Petri and Peder
Galle. The Sacking of Visby is not wholly free from pose.

VIII

THE OPPONENTS. NEW TENDENCIES IN
SWEDISH PAINTING

THE beginning of the eighties was a turbulent period
in the world of Swedish art. Many of the artists had
had their eyes opened to the rich growth of sculpture
and painting that flourished in France. They had eagerly
sought to utilize for their own ends the new suggestions
from Paris, and had learned the value of a closer and more
thorough study of nature and a broader method of painting.
They had become interested in painting the life that pulsates
round about us in fields and meadows, in drawing-rooms and
factories. Efforts were now made to paint the motif on the
spot — outdoor painting — and to obtain stronger light
effects. All this was pursued with youthful enthusiasm, and
when the results were exhibited at the Opponents' Exhibi-
tion in Stockholm in 1885, they were met by that mocking
laughter with which the new has always been greeted.
Among the "Opponents," who opposed the academic con-
ception and method of teaching, there were, at the close of
the century, many artists who were known and admired all
over Europe, and who, more than any of their predecessors,
had made Swedish art known and respected in the circles and
among the people who, in the course of time, have most
influenced European judgment of art. Many of the Oppo-
nents united in 1886 and formed Konstnarsforbundet.

Among all the Opponents, Ernst Josephson was perhaps
the most oppositional nature. Violence and weakness, tend-
encies at once revolutionary and romantic, were found in
him, and his contribution to Swedish art has been invaluable.
Ernst Josephson was born in a highly cultured Jewish

151

152 SCANDINAVIAN ART

family in Stockholm. In the beginning of the seventies, he
went through the Academy of Arts, and he afterwards
travelled in Holland, Italy, and France. At first he was
strongly influenced by the Dutch and Venetian schools of
art; then he went to Paris, where he received deep impres-
sions from Manet. When Josephson exhibited his portraits
at the Paris Salon in 1 88 1, he was lauded in the foremost
art magazine of France, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, as one of
the greatest of contemporary portrait painters. It was
more difficult to obtain recognition in his native land.

Josephson was the man who took the initiative in the
above-mentioned opposition to the Academy, the result of
which was Konstnarsforbundet. The duration of his crea-
tive period was to be short; for as early as 1888, during his
art studies in Brittany, he was attacked by a mental disease.
An unusually rich and intense inner life lies back of his art,
and is revealed in his coloring as well as in his ideas. In
fact, this characteristic quality can be detected even in the
sketches which were made during his illness. Though hazy
and distorted, they often disclose the guiding light of genius,
while they are conventionalized in execution.

Josephson had learned much from Rembrandt and the
Venetians of the sixteenth century. He made a superb copy
after Rembrandt's* Director of the Clothes Dealers' Guild,
and his first paintings bear witness to influences from the old
masters. In 1878 he painted Saul and David, with its warm
golden tone and its rich, deep pigments, calling to mind the
Venetian masters of the Renaissance. The painting has
been presented to the National Museum by a society called
Friends of the National Museum.

Josephson is excellently represented in the finely selected
and arranged collection of Klas Fahaeus in Hogberga,
Lidingd, where a whole wall is devoted to him. The eye is
at once arrested by the portrait of Fru Gustaf af Geijer-
stam, with its look of foreboding, while perhaps the most
noteworthy of all is the large painting Cheating Gamesters,
a mere sketch but masterly from a coloristic and dramatic
viewpoint. Among Josephson's portraits are those of the

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 153

The Journalist G. Renholm, by Ernst Josephson. In the National
Museum at Stockholm

two artists, his friend, Allan Osterlind, in the Gothenburg
Museum, and a splendidly characterized picture of Carl
Skanberg, the elegant, hunchbacked artist, pictured with a
Gobelin tapestry as background. It is especially in the por-
trait of the Swedish-French journalist Renholm, sketched
in his black suit against the cream-colored wall, that Joseph-

154

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Spanish Blacksmiths, by Ernst Josephson. In the National Gallery
at Christiania

son has introduced a freedom and breadth and at the same
time a fresh modernity, which makes this production a mile-
stone in the development of Swedish art. The same quali-
ties and maybe more of the "joy of painting" are found in his
Spanish Blacksmiths, done in 1882 in Seville, and now
adorning the National Gallery in Christiania. Among his
portraits of women are Fru Bagge, nee Heyman, in a black
dress and with a bouquet of flowers, and the excellent portrait

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155

Fru Jeanette Rubenson, by Ernst Josephson. Loaned to the
National Museum

of Fru Rubenson, at once conventionalized and realistic and
with a delightful mixture of Orientalism and Swedish sum-
mer pleasure.

Before illness broke his strength, he executed his large
and violently contested painting The Water Sprite which
is in the collection of Prince Eugen. It was painted in
Eggedal, a few miles north of Drammen in Norway, and
represents a young boy who in the midst of sunshine plays
his despair upon a golden violin. With its blue and green
tones, with the light body of the youth against the cliffs and
foaming cataract, this work represents Josephson's strange

156

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Water Sprite, by Ernst Josephson. In Prince Eugen's home,
ValdemarsuoMe, Stockholm

union of realism and romanticism. It is a cry of anguish
and unsatisfied longing, of despair at the impossibility of
giving form to the emotions of the soul. This remarkable

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 157

work of art, at one time offered by its royal owner to the
National Museum, which refused it, was not adequately
appreciated even by Josephson's comrades among the Oppo-
nents. It is now set in a wall in what is possibly the most
beautiful home in Sweden, that of Prince Eugen at Valde-
marsudde in Stockholm. The artist has treated the same
theme more harmoniously in another smaller painting called
The Nix, presented to the National Museum by the
"Friends" of that institution. One seems to hear the mighty,
full-toned stroke of the bow, mingling with the roar of the
cataract, when the tawny, leaf-crowned boy plays in the
summer night.

Carl Hill, who died insane in 191 1, received strong im-
pulses in France from the impressionistic painting of light,
and has left some landscapes which show that Swedish art
suffered a great loss when he broke down so early. August
Hagborg and Hugo Salmson, who were also counted among
the Opponents, may be said to belong, through choice of
themes and technique and prolonged residence in France,
to French art. Hagborg is fond of painting the people on
the shore of northern France, the silver-grey sky, and the
greenish-blue waves. Among his scenes from the seashore
may be mentioned Waiting, a fisherman's wife from Skane,
who with her child on her arm is watching for her husband.
Hagborg won fervent admiration through his painting Low
Tide near La Manche. Hugo Salmson was influenced by
Bastien-Lepage and other French painters of country folk
in the choice of his motifs from the villages in Picardy. His
White Beet Harvesters, in the Gothenburg Museum, painted
in 1878, shows this tendency. He has also found motifs for
many pictures in Skane, as in The Gleaners, in some well
painted interiors of peasants' cottages, and in The Children
at the Gate in Dalby, which was purchased by the French
government, and is probably the representation of Swedish
peasant life most popular on the Continent.

Per Ekstrom is an important landscape painter. Long a
resident in France, he received impressions from the French
landscape painters, impressions which, however, he has used

158 SCANDINAVIAN ART

in his own art with much independence. Ekstrom is a color-
ist, whether he paints the barren heaths of his native island,
Oland, or lets a red evening sun play with luminous beams
over glittering waters and greyish-violet cliffs. Carl Skan-
berg, through pictures distinguished not least from the view-
point of color, introduced, about 1880, a new freshness into
Swedish landscape painting. Especially the harbor motifs
from Holland and Venice are comparable with the best of
contemporary landscape painting, and perhaps the foremost
of all is the pearl grey, masterly canvas Santa Maria della
Salute in the Rain, which was presented by Ernst Joseph-
son to the National Museum. How airy, clear, and exqui-
site in color does not this painting appear compared with
G. V. Palm's hard, monotonously tinted pictures of Venice !
The sterling art of Carl Larsson is typical of much that
was best among the so-called Opponents of the eighties. He
was born in Stockholm in 1853 and began his career as an
illustrator. We have had few good illustrators in Sweden,
but in his drawings to the poems of Anna Maria Lenngren,
and not less in his genuinely Stockholmian sketches to Sehl-
stedt's Songs, he developed a combination of wit and essen-
tial Swedishness heretofore unequalled among us. Larsson
went to France, and there became engaged to Karin Bergoo.
His artistic talenfcburst into full bloom in the water-color of
a French Peasant Girl grinning in the sunlight among red
and yellow flowers, painted in 1883 and now in the National
Museum; in delicate and Verdant garden pictures; and in the
water-color masterpiece Grez sur Loing, representing Fru
Anna Liljefors at the shore of Loing, now in possession of
Fru M. Levisson in Gothenburg. These motifs are taken
from Grez, a small town near the forest of Fontainebleau,
about seventy kilometers southeast of Paris. There lived
at the beginning of the eighties a large number of those
Swedish artists who have given the name "Opponents" an
honored place in the history of art, among them Carl Lars-
son, Karl Nordstrom, and others. A characteristic of Lars-
son was his restless productivity. Everything he has done
is instinct with energy and joy of life, and it is only when

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159

Mother and Daughter. Water-color by Carl Larsson. Owned by
Ernest Thiel, Stockholm

genius is combined with such indomitable love of work that
it can lead, as with him, to great results. An example of
this is his revival of monumental fresco painting. Through
the generosity of a native of Gothenburg, P. Fiirstenberg,
he was able to make, in 1891, his first attempt at mural
painting in a girls' school in Gothenburg. Hereby Swedish
art not only gained some excellent new paintings to add to
its treasures of beauty, but an important beginning was made
in reintroducing art into life and, instead of storing it away
in museums, letting it shine — as during the Renaissance — in
everyday life, giving ideality to a place of daily toil.

Herr Fiirstenberg's art collection, established with pres-
cient taste and containing much of the very best of vital
Swedish art from the close of the century, has now been
presented to the Gothenburg Museum. Here are found
the three large decorative mural paintings by Larsson, de-
picting the three epochs in art, Renaissance, Rococco, and

160

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Woman Sitting. Etching by Carl Larsson

Modern Art. These three are resplendent with color; and
the last mentioned, in its fresh, happy scale of colors, has a
typical air of the eighties. The foreground is occupied by
an artist modelling in clay the statue of a woman; behind
him is seen Larsson himself as an outdoor painter, with a
Japanese looking on to call to mind the admiration of the
new movement for Japanese art. In the background we see
Paris, the city where a more thorough technique was learned,
and a new, less conventional view of nature was inculcated.

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 161

Paris, the city of violet lights in an atmosphere filled with
chalk-dust. The half finished Eiffel Tower rises beyond the
Seine, and a midday haze lies over the landscape. A warm,
red cactus flower in the foreground has an exhilarating effect
like a cheerful trumpet blast. Beneath the painting Larsson
has sculptured in high relief a naked young woman, who
turns her back and the pretty, merry profile toward the
spectator; in her whole supple figure we find the joy and
youthfulness which the new art purposed to give.

In the Paris of 1880 there were many Swedes. There
Strindberg wrote his turbulent stories so full of spring feel-
ing, and there the Opponents learned to paint from good
teachers in an environment which was stimulating and ab-
sorbed in art. It was the second time that our art became
indebted to France; but the art of the eighteenth century
languished, when it was transplanted to our indifferent and
parsimonious fatherland. The fresh art of the eighties, on
the other hand, flourished and shot new, national shoots in
our land, encouraged by Swedish patrons of art, but also
vigorously combated in many influential circles.

Larsson executed a monumental achievement — not only
with respect to physical dimensions — in his gigantic frescoes
above the staircase of the National Museum. Carl Lars-
son learned from the art of Japan and the rococo, and
most assuredly appropriated impressions also from the
decorative paintings of Tiepolo; but in temperament he was
wholly a Swede, and these frescoes are not only an expres-
sion of Swedish generosity, but are Swedish in their concep-
tion and execution with an abundant measure of the splen-
dor and magnificence that we have loved from days of old.
The expense of the frescoes was defrayed from a fund
created by Froken Sofia Gieseke and the merchant J. H.
Scharp, who have thereby given proof of a patronage worthy
of the gratitude of all Swedish citizens and the emulation of
the wealthier among them. The six frescoes, three on each
wall, represent an equal number of episodes in the history of
Swedish art. All these episodes, with the exception of one,
are localized in the Royal Palace, around which Swedish art

162

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Gustavus III in Logarden Receiving the Antique Statues He Had

Purchased in Italy. Fresco by Carl Larsson, in the stairway of the

National Museum

centered during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Ehrenstrahl, the Father of Swedish Painting, for whom
Charles XI, the surly royal economist, is posing as a model,
is the theme of the first. The central part on the same wall
shows Nikodemus Tessin the Younger, the gifted architect
of the Royal Palace, who is giving over to Harleman the
task of completing the Palace. The aging Tessin is repre-
sented with monumental breadth against a background of
scaffolding and mural surfaces. To the right of this picture
is seen the Frenchman Taraval's Painting School, where the
young Swedish artists who helped to decorate the Palace

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163

received guidance in their art. As mentioned before, Tara-
val's school furnished the initial impetus for the establishment
of the Academy of Arts. The undulating lines of the rococo,
the instructive, guiding attitude of the teacher, and the set-
ting up of the model are all rendered effectively and in a
manner typical of the time. The left side of the opposite
wall is occupied by a picture from Louise Ulrica's library at
Drottningholm. The Maecenas Karl Gustav Tessin, the
grand-seigneur of European fame, is showing the queen,
who was much interested in art, his treasures of engravings
and sketches which he had brought home from Paris, and
which now constitute a precious
part of the collections of the mu-
seum. On the middle fresco Gus-
tavus III is seen in Logarden
receiving the antique statues he
had purchased in Italy. The words
"there was a glamour over the
days of Gustavus" stand out
vividly before our mind, when we
behold the festive joy which radi-
ates from the mural surface and
meets the spectator. To the right
of this fresco Sergei is repre-
sented working on his Cupid and
Psyche. Sergei's countenance has
something of a deeply brooding
nature; one can understand that
in this magnificent head were born
the visions of beauty later giv-
en form in marble. Original
composition, manly and confident execution, and the jubilant
tone of the mighty harmony of colors make these six fres-
coes, completed in the autumn of 1896, not only the largest
but also the best monumental painting that our country has
produced up to this time. In 1908 Larsson continued the
decoration of the grand staircase by adding his gigantic
work in oil, The Entry of Gustavus Vasa into Stockholm,

Sergei at work on His
Cupid and Psyche.
Fresco by Carl Larsson,
in the National Museum

164 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Midsummer Eve, 1523. It is well placed over the door,
and shows Gustavus, a picture of Swedish vigor and health,
riding on his white horse bedecked with flowers. The draw-
bridge and the cheering multitude outside the city wall have
been used by the artist to create a composition of unusual
monumental effect. A work which was highly valued by the
artist himself, but is not held in great esteem by many of his
admirers, either from the viewpoint of color or contents, is
A Midwinter Offering, picturing an Uppsala king who sacri-
fices himself. In 19 15 it was sketched on an immense card-
board, and the artist intended that it should be executed in
fresco as a pendant to The Entry of Gustavus Vasa.

In an atelier in the North Latin School in Stockholm,
Larsson painted, in the summer of 1901, a fresco represent-
ing the pupils of the school gathered for Prayer in Ladu-
gardsgardet. The fact that he here has pictured his own
time in its own dress will give this painting an historical
value in addition to its great artistic merits. One of the
best things from a decorative point of view that Larsson has
ever done is the oil painting sunk into the white ceiling of
the lobby in the Dramatic Theatre. The Birth of the Drama
is the name of this imaginative ceiling-piece, in which a
female form symbolizing the poet's idea is seen amid the
three crowns gliding across the nocturnal sky, while in her
wake follow the human passions, nude and wonderfully well
drawn bodies of men and women. At one end we see the
poet, at the other the actor receives the embodied idea which
he is to reveal later to the spectators.

Larsson's pictures from his home, Sundborn in Dalecarlia,
have contributed most to making him a popular painter. He
shows himself in them an unexcelled portrayer of children,
while every piece of furniture seems to thrive in an atmos-
phere of humor and harmony. In these rumpled young-
sters, portrayed with the double keen-sightedness of love
and art, there is an effervescing joy and a kindly roguishness,
qualities which indeed characterize Carl Larsson's whole
artistic production. The group My Family, painted in life
size, deserves special mention. It represents Carl Lars-

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

165

son's wife and chil-
dren in the yard at
Sundborn, and is
found in the collec-
tion of Thorsten
Laurin in Stockholm.
The artist has paint-
ed his own person in
two remarkable por-
traits of himself, one
of them, in the Thiel
collection, in half
length, the other
showing him envel-
oped in a yellow
dressing gown. This
last portrait especial-
ly has an impressive
air. Carl Larsson pos-
sessed the prodigality
of genius to an un-
usually high degree.
Frescoes, oils, water-
colors, sketches,
lithographs, and etch-
ings of high value
have been created by
this remarkable ar-
tist, who infuses into
all his work the dis-
tinguishing touch of
his own personality,
even though all have
not the same value,

and sometimes a certain calligraphic dryness and sweetish-
ness appears. Carl Larsson's art possesses to a rare degree
the great and precious qualities of originality and style. His
production was cut short by his death in 19 19.

Portrait of Self, by Carl Larsson.
Gothenburg Museum

In the

166

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The artistic career of Hugo Birger, who was born in
Stockholm in 1854 and died in 1887, was brief. In his
color he is often hard and garish, and he liked to choose
themes that allowed the use of motley tints, such as the
toilet of elegant ladies of the beau monde in Spain, enjoying
life with a lightness of heart which characterized the artist
himself in the highest degree. It was left to this life-loving
artist, at a time when disease had already begun to under-
mine his strength, to fix on a large canvas a memorial of

Breakfast in Ledoyen's Restaurant, Paris, at the Opening of the Salon,
by Hugo Birger. In the Gothenburg Museum

the happy companionship in Paris during the time of the
Opponents. His Breakfast in Ledoyen's Restaurant at the
Opening of the Salon, exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1886,
and now in the Gothenburg Museum, has, in addition to its
great historical value, a breath of sunshine and joy, of good
fellowship and zest of living. Among the artists who took
part in these breakfasts on the large glass-enclosed veranda,
which have thus been preserved for posterity, were Salmson,
Hagborg, Josephson, Pauli, Larsson, Thegerstrom, Wahl-
berg, Hasselberg, Edelfelt, Vallgren, and Birger himself,
who died the year after the exhibition of the painting.

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

167

Parnassus. Fresco by Georg Pauli, in the stairway of the Gothen-
burg Museum

One of the most ardent organizers of the opposition move-
ment was Georg Pauli, born in Jonkoping in 1855. Among
his productions in the eighties At the Sick-bed, a work of
sensitive coloring, now in the possession of Fru Clara Pauli,
of Stockholm, occupies perhaps the foremost position. But
his Roman Wet-nurses, in the Gothenburg Museum, a can-
vas glowing with color and painted with humorous char-
acterization, is an excellent work of art. With the excep-
tion of Carl Larsson, Georg Pauli is the only one who, dur-
ing the latter half of the nineteenth century, devoted himself
to the difficult and exacting art of fresco painting. The
stairway of the Gothenburg Museum, a building of solid and
tasteful construction both within and without, has been
adorned by Pauli with dignified frescoes in discreet colors,
representing in general outline the history of the progress of
Gothenburg. They were completed in 1896. The lateral
parts were ready as early as 1895, and Pauli thus really
became the first artist of recent date to use fresco painting in
our land.

168 SCANDINAVIAN ART

In one of these Gothenburg frescoes called Trade and
Commerce we see an East India ship transporting Chinese
porcelain for the East India Company, which at one time
had its storehouse in the present museum building. Char-
acteristic of Pauli is the other larger fresco, The Parnassus,
where literary characters and artists from Gothenburg in
the fifties symbolize the scientific and artistic interests of
the city. The decorative painting Courtship, in possession
of the architect Ragnar Ostberg, was executed in 1899 and
pictures a "garden of love" with sentimental couples among
the laburnum shrubs, wearing costumes from the time when
enthusiasm for Jenny Lind and Emilie Hogquist was at its
height — a theme well suited to Pauli's art with its distinc-
tion, marred by occasional weakness in drawing. Pauli's
deeply poetical and decorative Midsummer Wake, in the
possession of Erik Frisell in Stockholm, is an exceptionally
happy representation of the magic effect of the light North-
ern summer night. His large fresco in the South Latin
School of Stockholm was painted in 1904, and depicts the
Trimming of the Maypole on an old Swedish estate. Among
his best productions are the frescoes Mining and Agricul-
ture in Riksbanken and, perhaps even more, the actor groups
in Kungstradgarden, steeped in the aroma of their time,
which were painted in 1908, and are now in the buffet of the
Dramatic Theatre. A drawing-room in Dr. Pauli's house
near Djursholm is adorned with a series of decorative fres-
coes representing the seasons and the pastimes belonging to
each. During the year 19 10 Pauli executed his charming,
sun-filled painting May in the music room of the Ostermalm
School in Stockholm. In his delightful illustrations to Gosta
Berling's Saga, Pauli has interpreted the temper of Swedish
country life at the beginning of the nineteenth century and
created interiors with an impressive, characteristic atmos-
phere, peopled by characters instinct with the spirit of the
imaginative masterpiece itself.

In his untiring search for the true principles of mural
decoration, Pauli tried several of the new tendencies, and
finally adhered, in 1915, to cubism. As early as 1913 he

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 169

had finished painting, in the staircase of the New Elementary
School in Jonkoping, a series of allegories on education, in
the cubist style. He is an excellent writer on art, espe-
cially distinguished as a stylist.

Friends; Ellen Key Reading Aloud in Pauli's Salon, by Hanna
Pauli. In the National Museum at Stockholm

Hanna Pauli, nee Hirsch, of Stockholm, belongs to our
figure painters, of whom, unfortunately, we have altogether
too few. Her portrait of Fru Jenny Soldan sitting on the
floor is done with a strong and realistic stroke, and has the
virile note which is also conspicuous in the likeness of Heiden-
stam, painted in 1906, which in its romantic and fantastic
conception interprets so well both the inner and outer man
of the original. The blue-gowned, light-haired little princess
of folksong at the city wall of Visby, The Princess, in the
Norwegian National Gallery, reveals her Swedish nature
underneath the archaizing form. This woman artist has
produced things of value in landscape painting, for example
her excellent Kungalv by Evening Light, an exceptionally

170 SCANDINAVIAN ART

magnificent landscape motif. She reaches her highest level,
however, in her portraits. For many years she was occupied
with a group picture, Friends, begun in 1900 and now in the
National Museum, showing Ellen Key in Pauli's salon read-
ing aloud to a sympathetic audience.

J. A. G. Acke is an original, versatile Jack-of-all-trades.
Sketches, decorative screens, and friezes, paintings with
occasionally far-fetched but always imaginative ideas — for
example In the Forest Temple, in Thiel's gallery — alternate
with portraits which show a touch of real genius. Foremost
among these, perhaps, is the splendidly characterized like-
ness of the author, Tor Hedberg, in a bright green dressing-
gown, in Thiel's gallery, where the soulful picture of Tope-
lius is also found. Among his many renderings of the sea,
the fresh-colored painting Ostrasalt in the Gothenburg
Museum perhaps takes first rank.

Oscar Bjorck is one of our most eminent portrait painters.
He was born in Stockholm in i860, studied at the Academy
of Arts, and spent some time at Skagen, in Paris, Munich,
and Italy. Bjorck is very successful in his broadly painted
portraits of elderly ladies and gentlemen, for example that
of Fru Charlotte Clason and the quite superb portrait of
the manufacturer Akerlund. In the latter a subtle and re-
strained emphasis on slight humorous traits adds to the char-
acterization. The delicate and warmly colored little picture
of his wife at the piano is also among the best of his earlier
portraits. As a portrait painter he undoubtedly entered
into the fullness of his power in the striking, characteristic,
and beautifully painted picture of his royal fellow-artist,
Prince Eugen.

Among Bjorck's earliest and most substantial productions
are Distress Signal, an excellently painted interior of a sail-
or's home, hung in the Copenhagen Art Museum; Roman
Blacksmiths, in the Museum in Washington, showing a sooty
shop illuminated both by the sun and by the fire in the forge ;
and the powerfully executed Farm Scene, in our National
Museum, with its brilliant sun effect. The large picture
painted in 1904 of Vadstena Abbey beneath a red evening

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 171

Prince Eugen, by Oscar Bjorck. In the National Museum at Stock-
holm

sky is decorative and romantic. This painting was pre-
sented by Prince Eugen to the Technical School in Stockholm.
Among his portraits we note the impressive picture of
Verner von Heidenstam, painted in 1900 and now in the
Gothenburg Museum, showing the poet leaning against a
white column looking from his balcony out over the waters
of Stora Vartan, also his singularly fresh and charming por-
trait of Fru Olga von Heidenstam, painted the same year
and now in the Copenhagen Art Museum, and the captivat-
ing and noble picture of Princess Ingeborg, in white and
gold, which is one of his most successful products, not least
by virtue of its coloring. The paintings done by Bjorck in
1895 in the dining hall of the Opera Restaurant are pos-
sibly a little too large in scale and suffer from the excess of
decoration and gilding in the room. Many of them are
excellent, however. Bjorck is uneven in his portraits, but
often reaches very high levels in both characterization and
feeling for color. It is seldom that we see an official por-
trait more captivating from all viewpoints than that of
Baroness Anna Trolle in black against red and gold, in which
line, color, and expression blend in an exquisite unity. The
picture of the bank director Louis Fraenckel in the Handels-

172

SCANDINAVIAN ART

bank in Stockholm portrays the financier looking out with a
good-humored yet sarcastic expression, as he sits in an office
with red carpets and solid polished mahogany surfaces. The
portrait is painted in a manner that is at once pleasing,
amusing, clever, and kindly.

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century
landscape painting was practised by hundreds of artists.
Among these, besides those previously noted, a few good
artists may be mentioned. Robert Thegerstrom, born in
London in 1857, shows himself also a skillful portrait
painter, for example, in Stenhammar at the Piano. Axel
Lindman studied in Paris and Italy, where he painted sev-
eral luminous pictures from Capri. His masterpiece is the
large canvas The Entrance to Stockholm, which hangs in the
Stockholm Municipal Building. Anshelm Schultzberg has
painted winter in Dalecarlia. His best work is perhaps Wal-
purgis Night in the Mining District, in the National
Museum. Vilhelm Behm has pictured Swedish nature in

A Moonlight Night, by Gottfrid Kallstenius. Owned by Paul
Majovski, Budapest

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 173

a fresh and genuine manner, under impressionistic influences
from France. Alfred Bergstrom has rendered with much
taste and skill the buoyant coolness of the winter air as well
as the stifling atmosphere of summer. Gottfrid Kallstenius
has, after studying in Stockholm and France, developed into
an eminent interpreter of the moods of the skerries, espe-
cially along the magnificently formed coast of Smaland.
Pine woods against deep blue summer skies or banked with
huge, wet snow-drifts and islands and waters in the magic
light of the moon are rendered with an artistic seriousness
and a lyrical strain which give Kallstenius's art a genuinely
Swedish quality, as in A Moonlight Night and the splendid
Baltic Coast hung in the Halsingborg Museum.

A profound thinker and a seeker after knowledge, a
philosopher of art almost as much as a painter, was Richard
Bergh, born in Stockholm in 1858, the son of the landscape
painter, Edvard Bergh. The picture of his first wife, in
the Gothenburg Museum, with its spiritual delicacy and
exquisite coloring of bluish-green tones, and its realistically
reproduced interior of the eighties, is one of the most inter-
esting of his earlier portraits. Others from the same period
and equally characteristic are the masterpiece Nils Kreuger,
in the Copenhagen Art Museum, and the portrait of the ar-
tist and art patroness Eva Bonnier, in the National Museum.
The latter is painted with passionate force and with psy-
chological keeness; the expression of harassed intellect and
restless seeking so typical of the time vie in interest with the
color scheme of clear yellow tones contrasted with the black
and gloomy pigments. A modest and charming Swedish
quality is found in Bergh's Toward Evening, a little flaxen-
haired peasant girl twining flowers on a meadow slope. This
picture is in the Gothenburg Museum. One of the few
realistic genre pictures produced in our land during the
period of realism is Richard Bergh's large painting A Hyp-
notic Seance, in the National Museum.

Bold and fantastic is The Knight and the Maiden, painted
by Bergh in 1897 and now in Thiel's gallery. The monu-
mentally treated landscape is illumined by the setting sun;

174

SCANDINAVIAN ART

My Wife, by Richard Bergh. In the Gothenburg Museum

the solemnity of decision envelops the young girl; but to
the knight all is bright with the crimson, flaming color of
love. In the Portrait of Himself, painted in 1898 for the
world-renowned collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence,
the searching eye of the artist has been turned toward his
own ego, and has reproduced on canvas a countenance in
which we divine the throes of the soul by which lasting works
of art are given birth. The picture of the admirable actress,
Fru Fahraeus, nee Bjorkegren, is perhaps the most power-
fully and soundly executed of all his later portraits of

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

175

women. Full of beauty and fervent feeling is A Northern
Summer Evening, representing a young couple who, from a
veranda, contemplate a Swedish midsummer landscape with
luxuriant verdure. It is a moment of complete happiness,
of complete stillness. The foremost examples of his later
production are : The Old Folks on the Shore, in the National
Gallery at Copenhagen; the interesting group, The Direct-
ors of Konstnarsforbundet; the monumental and humorous

Chr. Eriksson. Eug. Jansson. Kreuger. Nordstrom. Thegerstrom.

The Directors of Konstnarsforbundet, 1903, by Richard Bergh. In

the National Museum at Stockholm

interpretation of Karl Warburg's active intelligence; the
wonderfully individualized portrait of August Strindberg,
the man of contradictions; and Gustav Froding painted
while sitting alone in his sick-bed as in the desert, his hair
entangled like a hermit's, and his eyes aflame with great
secrets. Bergh was an excellent author on art subjects, color-
ful and original even in his literary style. As director of
the National Museum from 19 14 till his death in 19 19, he
rendered invaluable services to Swedish art.

While landscape painting has all too frequently degen-

176 SCANDINAVIAN ART

erated into a factory-like overproduction of morning and
evening atmospheres, and it is especially in this field that an
unrestrained dilettantism has flooded the market, we also
find an intimate understanding of nature growing constantly
more subtle in certain artists, who at the same time recognize
that the decorative element — for a picture is of course sup-
posed to decorate, that is adorn, its place — is indispensable
in a wall adornment, and that it should preferably be affixed
to the surface in a suitable setting.

Karl Nordstrom, born on the island of Tjdrn in 1855,
has a touch of manly melancholy and even of defiant power
in his art. During the eighties, when he lived in Grez, Nord-
strom painted as delicate and graceful pictures in as charm-
ing tones as did the other Parisian Swedes. The pastel por-
trait My Wife and the oil painting Garden Motif from
Grez, which call to mind the earlier water-colors of Lars-
son, are examples of his style at the time while he was receiv-
ing ideas from the impressionists and from the Japanese.
During a rather lengthy residence in Varberg in the middle
of the nineties, his scale of colors changed. It became
darker and more gloomy, while the monumental and dec-
orative qualities were intensified in contrast with the
emphasis on detail and on the accidental which character-
ized the tendency of the eighties.

The White Steamer, gliding forth among the skerries out-
lined in the pale radiance of the summer night against dark
rocky shores, aroused a wondrous feeling of mystery. In
this painting from 1891, Nordstrom has already commenced
to pass from the French conception to the Swedish. Easter
Fire, in Zorn's collection, is one of his best works from the
middle of the nineties. From the top of the mountain the
flames rise toward a sky glowing with pale light, while the
frosty chill of early spring night lies over the landscape. A
mystic pagan feeling for nature appears in this remarkable
picture — as indeed often in Nordstrom's art. His sketches
have as great artistic value as his paintings. At first he
used a technique reminiscent of copper etching. Later he
adopted a larger scale and a broader method of sketching

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

177

Winter Evening at Roslagstull, by Karl Nordstrom. In the Gothen-
burg Museum

with charcoal, by means of which he won from the iron
mountains of Lapland and the valleys of Bohuslan a beauty
at once austere and sensitive. In these sketches, as well as
in his paintings, he has occasionally given something of a
fantastic and much-needed beauty even to the most banal
rows of tenement-houses. It is the beauty in the very crust
of the earth — in round mountain knolls or in ploughed fields
with clouds lowering above them in threatening masses —
that Nordstrom portrays. Storm Clouds in the National
Museum is typical; it conveys to the beholder an almost
oppressive sense of a nature which seems to live its own life
and to be infinitely misunderstood by man with his restlessly
beating heart. Karl Nordstrom is a leader in Konst-
narsforbundet, and his oppositional spirit, which is at home
only in a contrary wind and feels stifled in a calm, is the
life and soul of the Society both in regard to art and art
policies.

Nils Kreuger was born in Kalmar and also studied in
France. All the delicate nuances that mist can lend are

178

SCANDINAVIAN ART

rendered by Kreu-
ger in his earlier
productions with a
lyric realism of the
most artistic spirit.
A good example of
a picture in which
an accidental mo-
tif, taken appar-
ently at random,
is treated artistic-
ally is Kreuger's
Farmyard. A
part of a ram-
shackle building
and a fence where-
upon hangs an in-
verted tub with a
bird perched on
top — that is all.
The snow is red-
dened by the light
of the morning sun,
the windows are
aflame; a glamour
of beauty has been
cast over the sim-
ple reality.

Kreuger, too,
found in Varberg,
about 1895, a new
style. He loved
the wide horizons, which are almost entirely lacking in the
middle Swedish landscape. He is as much a draughtsman as
a colorist. There is something of simple greatness in his
cows, whose heaviness and clumsiness have never been pic-
tured so faithfully and, one may add, so beautifully as

Farmyard, by Nils Kreuger. In the Gothen-
burg Museum

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

179

On a Stony Bottom. Drawing by Nils Kreuger. Owned by Ernest
Thiel, Stockholm

by Kreuger. The sheep grazing on the high plateau
of Oland, huddle together in characteristic flocks. But
it is horses that Kreuger prefers to paint; now out-
lined ghost-like in the bright summer night; now in blind-
ing sunshine, wading in the dark blue water near Oland's
long, low shore, and again, as in his Cab-stand (in the pos-
session of the author) during a moment's rest, chewing their
hay with philosophical melancholy.

Kreuger often paints on small wood panels, but likes also
to use larger dimensions. Some of the best mural paintings
in Sweden have come from Kreuger's hand. Two Oland
scenes with cows and horses, presented in 1904 by Froken
Eva Bonnier, adorn the Grammar School near Valhallava-
gen in Stockholm, and the society Konsten i Skolan (Art in
the Schools) has presented a painting called Midsummer
Eve in Stockholm, full of summer sunshine and the joy of
work, to the Adolphus Frederick Grammar School near
Vanadisvagen. Honesty and firmness are at the very root
of Kreuger's nature and art.

The decorative quality pervades also the soulful and per-
sonal art of Prince Eugen, born in 1865 in Drottningholm

180

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Old Castle, Suhdbyholm in Sodermanland, by Prince Eugen.
Owned by the artist

Castle. The Old Castle, with its threatening clouds and
warm, glowing colors, has something impassioned in its
tone. In his painting A Summer Night, in the National
Museum, he employs the unplastic lines of the middle Swe-
dish landscape in such a large and monumental way that the
forest heights and small islands enveloped in the luminous
twilight of the summer evening give the spectator a sense of
the structure of the landscape and of a universality without
abstract coldness. Prince Eugen has treated the beautiful
motif from Tyreso in a mural painting eight meters in length,
which he has presented to the North Latin School in Stock-
holm. On the wide expanse dark masses of pine are outlined
against the glassy lake, and over the landscape shines a

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 181

golden yellow evening sky. The painting is placed in a hall
the architecture of which calls to mind the Florentine houses.
Grandeur and serenity rest over the landscape, and the
painting gleams like a jewel between the austere columns.
In the main auditorium of the same school Prince Eugen has
painted a decorative landscape in apsis. The same artist
has expressed a mystic, personal feeling for nature in the
two pictures Night Clouds, in Thiel's gallery, and The Quiet
Water, in the National Museum. Prince Eugen has worked
with great energy and with a clear purpose. He has often
painted his home environment on Djurgarden and the har-
bor of Stockholm as it appears from his house, with white
steamers and the lamps of the city shining like precious
stones over dark hulls of ships. No one else has interpreted
that most lyrically Swedish of all motifs, the summer night,
so well as Prince Eugen.

An obvious striving after the monumental is revealed in
his more recent work; wherein he adapts some of the latest
tendencies in modern art, for which he has always cherished
the deepest interest. The Sun Shines Over the City is the
name given by the artist to the exceptionally well-placed
fresco in the Ostermalm School in Stockholm. The figure-
less altar-piece in the Kiruna Church, in the most northern
part of Sweden, is intended to show, in the midst of dark-
ness and ice, the blessing of light when it gladdens earth by
its warmth and brightness. Recently he has depicted the

Evening at Tyreso. Mural painting by Prince Eugen, in the Nortl
Latin School, Stockholm

182

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Midsummer Night at Riddarholmen, by Eugen Jansson. Owned by
Thorsten Laurin, Stockholm

home of primitive Swedish culture in Vastergotland, and still
later in Ostergotland, where he gives the tender lines of the
hills and the wide views of the plains something of that sim-
ple nobility which should be the foundation of all great and
genuine art.

Prince Eugen's conception of nature, at once sensitive and
arbitrary, is met with again in Eugen Jansson, who died in
1915. In the choice of subjects he generally limited his
field to his native city, Stockholm, and he succeeded in bring-
ing out new aspects of its beauty. Most frequently he
painted Stockholm as it appears from "Soder" (South

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

183

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On the River Bank, by Herman Norrman. In the Gothenburg

Museum

Hill), and occasionally Riddarholmen reflected in the bay
on a calm summer night with deep violet shadows. Then
again, he painted a Winter Afternoon, when the setting sun
cast a copper-colored sheen over the cloud masses, when the
windows of the Palace gleamed, and the boats cut channels
in the snow-covered ice of the bay. This painting is in the
possession of Ernest Thiel, who owns a large number of
canvases by this great and original landscape painter.

In Eugen Jansson's colorful art lives a spirit which
thinks and feels with its own age. His workmen's tenements,

184 SCANDINAVIAN ART

the windows reflecting the burning gas jets, are rendered in
a light and with a technique that excite a sense of a ferment-
ing social discontent; yet this impression is conveyed simply
by the method of painting, for the use of figures as acces-
sories to guide the spectator finds no place in the work of
this artist, who despises all catering to the public. In Eugen
Jansson there is much of that searching spirit which char-
acterizes our best painters. He is never satisfied with what
he can do. This eminent artist — one of the most personal
interpreters of the beauty of nature that our age has pro-
duced— has achieved, perhaps, his greatest success in the
large picture of Riddarholm Bay bathed in golden light.

Eugen Jansson worked with admirable energy within a
field new to him when he painted the nude men in our cold
water bathhouses in Stockholm, all in bright sunlight and
with strong, blue shadows; yet these figure paintings from
his later period can by no means be compared to his wonder-
fully personal and creative landscapes.

An artist who has made valuable contributions to Swedish
landscape painting is Herman Norrman, born in Smaland.
Norrman painted landscapes and portraits in light tones
learned from the impressionists and with unusual freshness.
Among his portraits is Froken Backman in a black dress
against red, painted in 1887, now in Thorsten Laurin's col-
lection. In his later style Norrman is impassioned, imbued
with a strong personal touch. A reddish-brown tone per-
vades his larger pictures, which are executed with a broad
brush and thick layers of paint. He is most interested in
clouds and their shadows upon woods and fields. Examples
of his work are found in Prince Eugen's collection, in the
Thiel gallery, and in the Gothenburg Museum, and he is also
well represented in the National Museum. Norrman was
originally a cabinet-maker in Tranas, but despite that, this
gifted man developed into an artist in the true sense of the
word.

NEW TENDENCIES IN SWEDISH PAINTING

(CONTINUED)

THE works of Bruno Liljefors are loved everywhere
in Sweden. Few artists have painted their way into
the hearts of all men as he has, and few have remained
so Swedish in their conception of nature. The woods have
never had a greater interpreter than Liljefors. He was
born in Uppsala in 1 860, studied for a while at the Academy
of Arts in Stockholm, then went to Diisseldorf, and finally
to Paris, but was undoubtedly one of those artists who are
essentially self-taught. In the beginning of his career he
was influenced by Japanese fondness for detail and by
French impressionism ; later he sought more monumentality.
The criticism sometimes made of his art is that his view of
animals is too zoological; but he is a hunter in the highest
sense of the term at the same time as he is not less an artist,
and therefore, his paintings, however correct and detailed
they may be as delineations of animals, still almost always
have a beauty and a unity by virtue of which they are true
works of art. Among his early pictures, in which the feeling
for the forms and details of nature is conspicuous, we may
mention the animal study Cat and Bird. But his best work
from this period is The Fox Family, painted in 1886, show-
ing the foxes capering around their prey in the grass among
yellow and white meadow flowers.

Sometimes Liljefors paints the somber Winter Night
brooding over snow-laden pines, when the wind sighs in the
trees, and ragged clouds go scudding over the heavens, while

185

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Fox Family, by Bruno Liljefors. In the National Museum at

Stockholm

the foxes steal farther and farther into the forest. Some-
times he pictures the Wild Geese flapping their wings heav-
ily, as they descend toward the lake shore in the quiet spring
evening and are greeted by the cackling of their comrades.
The latter theme has been treated by the artist on an enor-
mous canvas with a red evening sky, hanging in the Copen-
hagen Art Museum, and again, with a more sensitive touch
perhaps, in a small picture owned by the architect Boberg,
Spring Evening and Wild Geese, in which two of the big
birds flit past in the buoyant spring air against a pearl-col-
ored sky.

In certain of his works the artist seeks the monumental
effect, sometimes also the dramatic, and both of these qual-
ities are combined in the famous picture Sea-eagles, painted
in 1897 and now in the National Museum. The enormous
billow in The Breakers, in Prince Eugen's gallery, produces
the same effect of bigness. The largest and best collection
of Liljefors paintings in existence is owned by Ernest Thiel,
whose gallery of modern, especially of Swedish, art from the
beginning of the twentieth century is one of the most im-
portant that have ever been established in our country. Thiel
possesses a number of the ground studies, where Liljefors
dwells upon what is known as protective coloring, letting
small, shapely snipes or mottled curlews conceal themselves

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187

The Owl, by Bruno Liljefors. In the Gothenburg Museum

among greyish-brown hillocks, while he created veritable
color symphonies in tones of silver or gold out of the boggy
meadows that seem so ugly and insignificant to the uniniti-
ated. In this collection also we find Liljefors's best pictures of
ducks: canvases that "look as if they were painted by a
duck," as some one expressed it, in which the mother duck
waddles along among tufts of grass, watching her little
downy balls with motherly eye ; and the mysterious picture
known as The Panther-skin, in which the ducks, on a sum-
mer night, swim about in a circle near the edge of the reeds
on a strangely ruffled surface of the water.

On a cliff in the forest sits The Owl, painted in 1895, now
in the Gothenburg Museum. Shy of man and defiant, he
feels most at home when alone. Free and unrestrained he
would hunt, and the murmuring of the pines is the music he
loves. That owl strongly resembles its painter. Indeed we
are reminded of him when we see Liljetor's Hunter in the

188

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of Self, by Bruno Liljefors. In the collection of Ernest
Thiel, Stockholm

National Museum. It has an almost Geijer-like note of
Swedish temperament and of feeling for nature; through it
we discover the very root of Liljefors's art, if we understand
that look of listening to nature's own voice which is in the
face of the hunter, as he stands with his gun among the
pine trees — the same, look that Liljefors has given himself
in the Portrait of Self done in 1913. Liljefors is one of
those who hear the grass grow and who understand the
language of the birds. We have every reason to be grateful
to him who has been able to interpret so well that which is
our own.

An artist who was past master in finding the essential in
everything, who in an almost supernatural way, could con-
jure up on canvas an object so rich in life-sap, so full-blooded,
that reality seems tame beside it, was Anders Leonard Zorn,
born in Mora, in i860, and whose untimely death took place
at the Mora hospital in 1920. His mother was a Dalecar-
lian girl, his father a German brewer. Zorn began his life-
work very early. After leaving the Academy, in 1880, he
soon won general admiration by his water-colors, some

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189

Portrait of Self, by Anders Zorn. In the National Museum at Stock-
holm

painted with splendid impetuosity, such as The Gypsy
Woman with her Child, and some with minute accuracy,
such as Our Daily Bread, in the National Museum. Among
his water-colors with subjects from Dalecarlia and from his
many and long travels in England, Spain, Northern Africa,
and Turkey, the small pictures from Mora Fair are espe-

190

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Outdoors, by Anders Zorn. In the Gothenburg Museum

daily noteworthy, the best of them all being perhaps the
picture of the young mother leading her recalcitrant son into
the water, called A Premiere, now in the National Museum.
With this theme he later did an excellent piece of work in
golden tones.

About 1888, Zorn gave up water-colors almost entirely,
and among his first paintings in oil is Outdoors, in the Goth-
enburg Museum. Here he has treated in the freshest and
most artistic way his favorite theme, the nude bodies of
women, outlined in all their beauty and softness against the
grey, jutting rocks of the shore. Even the surface of the
water is handled with an almost voluptuous touch. Zorn's
purpose in his work, which is not least evident in this picture,
is, first of all, to develop "values" in art, in other words to
perfect a kind of painting that emphasizes lights, half tones,
and shadows, and deals in particular with different degrees
of light in the various color schemes. In his long productive
period Zorn created a glorious line of masterpieces.
Sometimes he fails, however, and then he may give a sweet-
ish superficiality to his work, whether it be in oil or water-
color, whether representing a nude or a portrait. Not only
Homer but Zorn also may be caught napping.

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191

Zorn claimed that he never painted anything "invented."
He paints his own age and understands that even now there
is an abundance of picturesque motifs everywhere for any
one who has eyes to see. He paints Bread-making in a
peasant's home in Dalecarlia, and the pasting of labels in a
Brewery, or The Inside of a Parisian Omnibus, and in the
same year The Waltz, in which the artist himself is seen
whirling about in a French salon. These diversified themes
testify that he could find interesting material for his brush
in almost anything. Gradually, however, he concentrated
his efforts around the following groups of themes: folk life
in Dalecarlia, nudes, and portraits with the most interna-
tional circle of sitters. Among his pictures from Dalecarlia
may be mentioned in particular Midsummer Dance in Mora,
in the National Museum, and
the vividly colored, festal white
church interior with Dalecar-
lians attending Christmas
Matins.

No one else in Swedish art
has painted woman's body as
Zorn does, and indeed the excel-
lence of his style in this field
makes him unique among his
contemporaries. C. R. Lamm,
whose rich collection contains
many modern works of art,
owns perhaps the best example
of this in Naked, painted in
1894 in New York from an
Irish model, and representing a
red-haired, large limbed woman who is drying herself. The
room where she stands is filled with a silvery light which pro-
duces a most beautiful effect. The whole picture is painted
with passion and vim. The same vigor and exuberance in
painting characterizes Summer, in Prince Eugen's collection,
a blonde, healthy woman who is wading out into the water,

Naked, by Anders Zorn.

In the collection of C. R.

Lamm, Nasby

192 SCANDINAVIAN ART

and The Improvised Bath, in the National Museum, show-
ing two Dalecarlian women in a bath-house in the double
illumination from the window and from the fire. The massive
back of one woman gleams with the water; the younger,
with the bright red ribbons in her light hair, stands innocent
and unconscious, turned toward the spectator.

Zorn's young flaxen-haired peasant women with their light
complexions and their slightly projecting cheek-bones could
not be anything but Swedish. Among these peasant pictures
should be noted Kings-Karin, a laughing girl in red, with
mischievous eyes, owned by Dr. Hjalmar Lundbohm,
Kiruna, and the lovely Hallams-Kersti. Among the figures
of men, the shrewd, humorous country watchmaker Djos-
Matts occupies perhaps the first place.

Zorn painted portraits all his life, first in water-color,
then in oil. Among the latter the following are perhaps the
best, taken as a whole : the picture of the highly gifted French
actor Coquelin Cadet, in exquisite bluish green tones, owned
by Thorsten Laurin; the vivid, animated portrait of the
librarian H. Wieselgren, called A Toast In Idun; the bril-
liant Portrait of Himself with a nude model; the sympa-
thetic representation of Prince Carl in blue uniform, owned
by the Horseguards, in which the action is rendered in
masterly fashion; ajid the splendidly characteristic portraits
of King Oscar, one in court dress with the order of the
Seraphim, the other, in everyday costume, a color harmony
in brown and gold. The superb intimate portrait of Fru
Emma Zorn in red with the dog Mouche, and the elegant,
virtuoso-like picture of Fru Josef Sachs in glossy black silk
and furs and with a green emerald on her finger as the only
speck of color, perhaps deserve special mention. Zorn
modeled, carved in wood, and etched with the same skill. In
the statue of Gustavus Vasa, erected in Mora in 1903, he
proved himself a sculptor of very high rank, and his sculp-
tural merits appear to yet greater advantage, perhaps, in the
small, strongly sensual bronze group Faun and Nymph. The
Morning Bath, a fountain set up in Stockholm and repre-
senting a young naked girl who is squeezing a sponge, is full

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193

Gustavus Vasa. Statue in bronze, by Anders Zorn. Mora in
Dalecarlia

of freshness and warm life. Among his figures carved in
wood, Grandmother, a particularly lifelike old woman's
head, and the little wooden figure Gryvel, in the National

194

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Irish Woman. Etching by Anders Zorn

Museum, a stout but shapely Dalecarlian maiden crawling
on the floor, are especially good.

In his spirited etchings Zorn catches a momentary expres-
sion in its flight and records the action with few but striking
lines and dashes that hit the copper surface like a rain

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 195

shower. He delights in fixing the passing moment upon the
plate. Copper more than anything else gives sap and
warmth to a sketch. Zorn is one of the greatest etchers that
have ever lived. His technique is entirely independent, and
many Swedish and foreign collectors and connoisseurs of
engravings consider him the foremost etcher after Rem-
brandt.

Among his etchings the remarkable portrait of Ernest
Renan with his thinker's head, The Irish Woman, at once
passionate and melancholy, and Maja, the voluptuous beauty,
deserve special mention. Besides these are the portraits of
Madame Simon, Senator Mason, Portrait of the Artist and
Wife, of the American art connoisseur Marquand, Fru Olga
Bratt, Mme. Dayot, and the American Zorn collectors Mrs.
John Gardner and Mr. and Mrs. Atherton Curtis. Even in
his etchings Zorn likes to depict nude women, and does so
in superb manner. Among the most brilliantly executed
examples are A Premiere, etched after the water-color of
1888; My Model and My Boat, showing the stately, self-
reliant woman throwing the artist's ulster over her shoul-
ders; Edo, a naked girl on a rock, more graceful than most
of Zorn's models; A Dark Corner, with two nude negresses;
A Woman Guitar Player crouching in bed; and the fascinat-
ing girl sitting on a rock with her feet in the water, which
he calls Wet.

Zorn occupied a position of honor among the foremost
artists of the world. He is as well known in North America
as in Hungary; he is considered a celebrity both in England
and in Germany, but he never forgot that he was a Swede,
and he contributed more than any one else to inspire respect
for Swedish art abroad.

Olof Sager-Nelson, who died in 1896, found time during
his short life of thirty years to produce works of such ster-
ling value that he won for himself a place in Swedish art.
A picture in the Gothenburg Museum, representing a violin
player and his audience, and called The Stroke, is perhaps
most typical of his art. There is always a musical quality in
his work, but in this painting one can almost hear the timbre

196

SCANDINAVIAN ART

of the stringed in-
strument, hear the
vibrations of a deep
and mighty tone that
would almost burst
the breast with its
longing and de-
fiance. This genuine
characteristic of the
nineties, mysticism
and defiance in com-
bination, recurs in
all Nelson's strange
and yet beautiful
portraits with their
yellowish green
tone. Suffering from
a disease of the
lungs, he finally be-
came melancholy in
his deeply personal
art. In A Disciple,
The Foster Broth-
ers, and Princess
Maleine, the pale
and precocious little girl at the pool, there is always this
tremulous dark tone which gives the young artist's produc-
tions their haunting charm.

Axel Sjoberg has painted with strong feeling the life of
nature in the outer skerries of his native city, Stockholm,
where gulls rest on a sequestered shoal beneath the starry
heavens, or swans lift their wings from melting cakes of ice
and fly, dazzling white, over the blue sea. Aron Gerle,
born in Dalsland, seems able to extract from the ugliest city
thoroughfare the same mystic melancholy and beauty to
which Hjalmar Soderberg has given form in his novels with
their atmosphere of our time. Gerda Wallander, also a
native of Stockholm, the widow of Alf Wallander, has suc-

A Disciple, by Olof Sager-Nelson.
Owned by the artist G. Pauli, Stockholm

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

197

cessfully carried out the happy idea of reproducing the Stock-
holm of our day and has given us picturesque presentations of
streets and markets, of museum halls and amusement places.
Her portrait of the author Hjalmar Soderberg, in Thiel's
collection, is a startlingly well done likeness and an admir-
able character study.

Somewhat rugged, but sound and honest, is the art of the
figure painter, Carl Wilhelmson, born in Fiskebackskil, who

Going Home from Church, motif from Fiskebackskil, Bohuslan,
by Carl Wilhelmson. In the National Museum at Stockholm

198 SCANDINAVIAN ART

paints the people of the west coast with a true and genuine
feeling. The quality of trustworthiness in the Swedish coun-
try workman is sympathetically rendered in the artist's Farm
Laborer, in Thiel's gallery. His Harbor Motif, in the
Stockholm Post Office, is a decorative painting of good effect,
and is one of the many precious gifts that have been pre-
sented to the city by Froken Eva Bonnier. Wilhelmson is
one of our very best artists. His drawing and his art of
characterization are excellent, and this is not least apparent
in his June Evening, showing a peasant lad playing a fiddle,
a picture full of atmosphere and feeling and yet a genuine
presentation of peasant life. He has a keen sense of strong,
clear colors : tile roofs sparkling in the sun, red mottled
shawls, dresses of the blue shade of the cornflower, and
now, since he has taken Spain into his circle of motifs, shin-
ing white walls. His picture Church Goers, painted in 1909
and representing natives of Bohuslan rowing to church, is
gaudy in the best sense of the term, but he is so chary of his
pigments that the texture shows through in most of his
canvases.

Louis Sparre was born near Milan, and lived for a long
time in Finland, where he made stimulating departures in
several domains of art, in architecture, and the crafts. Sparre
is a portrait painter, of merit and especially accomplished
in the use of color. This is attested in the portraits of Cor-
nelia Kuylenstierna, Tollie Zellman, Count Eugene von
Rosen, Fru Marta Key, and Herr Hagelin. Gosta von Hen-
nigs, born in Ostergotland, is original both in his coloring
and in his choice of motifs. The picturesque, brilliant, and
exotic aspects of the circus and the music hall have caught
his painter's eye, and from their swirl of glaring lights and
violent motion his color-thirsty brush often creates excellent
works of art in which surfaces of pure bright color stand out
like bits of masonry rather than paint, while the character-
ization of the clowns and dancing girls has all the fresh-
ness and instantaneity of impressionism.

The twin brothers Emil Osterman and Bernhard Oster-
man, born in Vingaker, resemble each other both in their

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

199

The Blue Clown, by Gosta von Hennlgs. In the collection of Klas
Fahraeus, Lidingon

external appearance and in their graceful painting. Even
though their work, like that of many other artists, is uneven,
nevertheless they occupy a prominent place in Swedish por-
trait art. In our time, when we so often ask what purpose
a painting serves, and where it should be placed in order to
give us pleasure, while so often our question brings no
answer, it is a real satisfaction to remember that family
portraits, painted with reverence and honest skill, possessing
both character and — what so many artists sadly lack — taste,
are still being produced in our land. The foremost example
of Emil Osterman's portraits is perhaps the picture of Pro-

200

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Professor Carl Curman, by Emil Osterman. Owned by Fru Curman

fessor Carl Curman, in which the weight of authority, the
calm assurance, and the intellect of the model have received
adequate expression. An excellent picture of King Gus-
tavus V in the uniform of a general — a portrait may be
meritorious even with a uniform — and the handsome por-
trait of the two friends Erik Lindberg and Bernhard Oster-
man, in black evening attire against a white wall, with the
red silk of the sofa and the topaz yellow lights of the punch
glass, are among his best works, and this is at least equally

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 201

true of the representation of Pastor Ahlberger, which is
full of humor and character. In 191 6 he finished his large
Studio Picture, a painting of huge dimensions and great
merit as to detail, representing the artist Emerik Stenberg
telling one of his funny stories to an interested audience in
Emil Osterman's studio. This work will prove of very great
interest, not least from an historical standpoint.

In the rich production of Bernhard Osterman may be men-
tioned the picture of Jonas Lie in Gothenburg Museum, the
interesting type of Bishop Billing with the pale face against
a background of black and green, the noble color harmony
and characterization in his portrait of Fru Alice Tigerschold,
and not least the charming picture of his wife, in which
grace and an air of the grande dame are combined to form
a salon portrait in the best sense.

Pelle Svedlund, born in Gavle, painted, in the nineties,
several pictures full of atmosphere with motifs from Bruges
and its canals. Vilhelm Smith has executed colorful and sub-
stantive paintings from his native city, Karlshamn, as well
as from Italy and Africa. Erik Hedberg has a strong feel-
ing for the characteristic features of the nature and people
of his native environment in Gastrikland. Edvard Rosen-
berg, a native of Stockholm, in his finely sensitive and beau-
tifully drawn painting A March Evening, in the National
Museum, has infused a Northern steel timbre into his color.
Emerik Stenberg, also a native of Stockholm, pictures in
honest and conscientious manner the people of Dalecarlia,
and shows an exceptional power of characterization in his
excellent canvas A Wake in Leksand, in the Gothenburg
Museum. He has painted a series of good portraits, among
which those of Professor Rudin, Colonel Baron Rosenblad,
and Professor Oscar Montelius should be especially noted.
David Wallin, in his soulful portraits The Wife of the
Artist, Fru Sven Lidman, Georg von Rosen, and others,
allows the figures to emerge like white wraiths from the
luminous darkness.

The Swedish note is emphasized and often very cleverly
caught in Gustav Ankarcrona's paintings, treating subjects

202 SCANDINAVIAN ART

from old-fashioned, comfortable manor houses where the
guest is received with much food and great friendliness.
Ankarcrona draws horses particularly well and likes to use
them as accessory figures in his pictures. Oscar Hullgren,
who like Ankarcrona was born in Smaland, has rendered the
sea and the Swedish coast landscape with exceptional fresh-
ness. His Harbor of Palermo is a remarkably good paint-
ing, and very interesting from an atmospheric standpoint.

Gustav Fjaestad, a native of Stockholm, has discovered
the decorative element of lichen-covered stumps and stones,
and has painted the solitude beneath snow-laden spruce trees.
Fjaestad, who has made a contribution to industrial art
through his designs for furniture and artistic textile fabrics,
is well known and esteemed abroad. Otto Hesselbom, who
died in 19 13, was much admired both in Germany and in
Italy for his serious, decorative pictures of the lakes and
forests of his native Dalsland. Not until later did this thor-
ough and modest artist become known in his own country.
Another artist who is greatly appreciated in Italy and on
the Continent is Fru Anna Boberg, nee Scholander, of Stock-
holm, whose numerous canvases with motifs from Lofoten
depict the magnificent scenery of the islands with picturesque
effect.

An artist who lays particular stress on the decorative, as
in the excellent portrait of his wife, and who at the same
time revels in the strongest colors in his pictures from the
Orient and from Italy, is Olle Hjortzberg, born in Stock-
holm. His decorations in Klara Church and even more those
of the auditorium in the New Normal School in the south
quarter of Stockholm bear witness to wide knowledge and
good taste.

Gunnar Hallstrom, also a native of Stockholm, is gifted
with imagination and with a certain solidity by virtue of
which he goes his own way. He seeks first of all character in
his drawing, and paints Swedish peasants and Swedish sport
in that Malaren environment which he loves most. The
artist, who lives on the historical Bjorko in Lake Malaren,
has pictured the home feeling around the red-painted houses

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 203

The Ski-runner, drawing by Gunnar Hallstrom. Owned by Herr
Clairemont, Vienna

surrounded by thick lilac hedges and the plough cutting the
meadow flowers and the turf beneath which rest the bones
of the forefathers; he has also sketched and painted ski-
runners and skaters on the bays. Two Stockholm artists
are Axel Erdmann, who has painted his native city in a series
of fine and colorful pictures, and Rikard Lindstrom, who has
painted the Stockholm Archipelago and also the Lofoten
Islands. In the canvases of the latter white bodies of women
appear between decorative groups of trees or emerge from
the dark blue water. His landscapes in brown and blue have
a certain pleasing austerity.

Among the artists from Skane the first rank is held by
Anders Trulson, who died in 191 1, and the painter and
etcher Ernst Norlind. The latter employs a distinguished
and personal scale of colors in grey and brown, with some-
times a cluster of yellow flowers or red-beaked, white storks
enlivening the pale tones of the landscape. Trulson painted
good landscapes and portraits, among them the strong por-
trait of himself in the National Museum. Ossian Elgstrom,
also from Skane, has become the artistic discoverer of the
Lapps. With wonderful intuition and an imagination filled
with dazzling colors and bloody horrors, he produces an
impression of primitiveness in his art. His sketches appear
like the visions of a Lapp in whom the old heathenism has
survived.

204 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Beacon Fires, fresco by Axel Torneman. In the second chamber of
the Riksdag

With rich and Germanic fantasy, John Bauer, born in
Jonkoping, created a charming and mystic saga world,
inhabited by clumsy and ungainly trolls, with lonely cabins
from which the smoke rises straight up over horizons of
pine forests, blue in the distance, and where fair-haired wood-
nymphs are glimpsed among the trees. Bauer created a
beautiful picture of Northern womanhood in the mural
painting Freja in the Karlskrona Girls' School. He died by
an accident on Lake Wettern in 191 8.

A pleasant Swedish quality, fresh and youthful with
breezes from bays gnd summer meadows, with gay girls on
skis, is found in Torsten Schonberg. He is one of our best
designers of posters. Einar Nerman, born in Norrkoping,
is a cartoonist with a fine sense of style. One hardly knows
whether to admire most the elegance of line or the charac-
terization in his cartoons; these and his illustrations to Fred-
man's Epistles, which appear as if breathed upon the paper
and filled with the dream of Bellman's Stockholm, are so
far, the best he has done. Sigge Bergstrom, born near Filip-
stad, has reawakened interest in the artistic possibilities of
the woodcut, and has also done good portraits and land-
scapes in oil.

Axel Torneman, a Varmlander, shows great decorative
ability. In his Night Cafe in Paris, in Thiel's Collection, he
has produced an almost mosaic-like masterpiece of effective

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

205

coloring. With big forms in an atmosphere of primeval
dawn he has painted Thor's Combat with the Giants in the
Ostermalm School, and in two austere but decorative fres-
coes in the Second Chamber of the Riksdag he pictures
Torgny at the Thing and Engelbrekt in Orebro, while in
the symbolic fresco Beacon Fires, in the same hall, he gives
artistic and powerful expression to the defiant forces of de-
fense against threatening war. Torneman's paintings often
have an original and superb color tone.

David Tagtstrom, of Dalecarlia, proves in his portraits
that he possesses both fine taste and ability to conventional-
ize in a personal way.

The two movements, expressionism and cubism, have had
a number of followers in Sweden. These seek, in the same
way as their French masters, to conjure up new values of
beauty by intentional and extreme deformations of reality
as well as by a new conventional scale of colors. Among
these painters are Isaac Griinewald, Gosta Sandels, Leander
Engstrom, Arthur C :son Percy, and many others.

Albert Engstrom, born in Smaland, is Sweden's greatest
humorous artist and one of the most eminent that we have
ever had in this domain. He is thoroughly Swedish and has

The Boy, the Princess, and the Golden Goose. Fairy-tale illus-
tration by Ivar Arosenius

206 SCANDINAVIAN ART

sketched our people — especially the lower classes — in a style
that is equally amusing and masterly. Engstrom's drawings
of Swedish nature and Swedish types have contributed much
to the artistic education of the general public, and have
taught many how to grasp the beauty and value of even
the most rapid sketches.

Ivar Arosenius became known and recognized all at once
through an exhibition arranged after his death, which oc-
curred in 1909. A succulent, full-blooded humor charac-
terizes his jocular sketches and paintings. Their brutality,
however, proves offensive to many. They have the same
orgiastic touch that distinguishes Bellman's songs, and in
many of Arosenius's paintings the strain of pathos is also
very marked. The wealth of his imagination is inexhaust-
ible, and his intuitive psychology is seen in, for example, the
initial awakening of a child's mind in that charming little
girl who stands alone watching the flame, The Girl and the
Candle, in the Gothenburg Museum. Arosenius succeeds
best perhaps in his fairy-tale motifs, born as they are of a
spirit that understands better than any one else in our coun-
try the soul of the fairy-tale in all its mysticism, humor, and
richness of color. Yngve Berg, of Stockholm, has a peculiar
gift of catching physical motion with his drawing-pencil.
His adroit toreadors, his dancers, and his Bellman illus-
trations, executed with amazing skill and taste in the spirit
of the eighteenth century, live and move in a way that place
him in the very front rank among European draughtsmen.

MODERN PLASTIC AND DECORATIVE ART

IN THE field of sculpture there has not been so much
activity as in that of painting. With the exception of
monuments to great men — which are not generally de-
signed to satisfy a craving for beauty — works of sculpture
are not ordered either by the State or by individuals, and
for that reason this whole branch of art has remained, as it
were, disconnected and outside the general development.

There has been no dearth of good sculptors, however.
The greatest number as well as the best of the portrait
statues erected in this country during the eighties and nine-
ties were designed by John Borjeson, who was born in
Halland, and died in Gothenburg in 19 10. The whole con-
ventional apparatus with large Spanish cloaks to give the
figures plasticity is brushed aside and the sculptor strives,
in the spirit of modern art, for character. He found
adequate form for the manly courage and Swedish vigor of
Geijer, as expressed in Geijer's Thought, a symbolic figure
on the pedestal of the Geijer statue in Uppsala, and also for
the aristocratic bearing of Oxenstierna. The statue of
Scheele, a personification of introspective, fruitful mental
activity, has the combined monumentality and character
which we like to see in a statue. The memorial to Oxen-
stierna has been set up by the nobility outside of Riddar-
huset; that to Scheele is in Humlegarden in Stockholm. The
artist has reached his highest level, however, in the eques-
trian statue of Charles X Gustavus, erected in 1896 in the
market-olace at Malmo. where the King sits calm and serene

207

208 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Karl X Gustavus. Statue by John
Borjeson

on his large-limbed horse, looking out over the country of
Skane like an imperious but popular master.

Teodor Lundberg has created a magnificent work of art
in The Billow and the Shore, in the Royal Palace. It is
modern in feeling and form; the contrast between the mas-
culine and the feminine is effectually emphasized, and the
pose gives expression to a vibrating life without infringing
on the plastic character of the work. The same artist has
created a figure full of power and vitality in Olavus Petri,
an embodiment of Lutheran courage, erected in 1898 outside
the Storkyrka in Stockholm. Among Lundberg's other
creations the stately group Svea with a Fallen Carolinian —
the so-called Poltava monument on the Artillery Grounds
in Stockholm — and the intimate, nobly composed group My
Family deserve special mention.

The tender beauty of woman's body is the chief subject
of Per Hasselberg's work. In the beginning he was some-
what bound by the French conception of form, but soon his

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 209

The Water-lily, by Per Hasselberg. In marble in the Gothenburg

Museum

own personality emerged, clear and distinct. The Snow-
drop, for all its spring loveliness, does not attain the grace
and charm and the dew-like freshness of The Frog, a figure
executed in marble in 1890 for the Gothenburg Museum.
Here also, in the midst of the finest examples of modern
Swedish art, his last work, The Water-lily, done in 1893,
the year before his death, reposes in her snow-white beauty.
The Water-lily rises amidst the powerful and jubilant fan-
fares of all the colors, and through her young limbs there
passes a tremor of joy at the wealth of existence. It is a
woman without any academic formulas, resting in the com-
bined majesty of sleep and beauty.

Hasselberg's art reveals a passionate love of life and of
eternal blooming youth. In The Grandfather, set up on
the lawn of Humlegarden in Stockholm, he has grouped in
monumental and simple fashion the old man and the boy
who continues where old age leaves off, thus symbolizing
the constant renewal of nature in spite of death and cor-
ruption. Hasselberg, who was a zealous participant in the
Opposition movement, has done an excellent animated

210

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Ernst Josephson. Bronze bust by Per Hasselberg.
In the National Museum at Stockholm

bronze bust, now in the National Museum, of his friend
Ernst Josephson.

During the golden periods of art the relation between
art and industrial art has been intimate and fruitful. It was
so in Greece, and it was so during the Renaissance, and
in the eighteenth century, as it is in Japan. After periods
of degeneracy and barbarism in industrial art — brought
on by the misconception that machines can do work as artis-
tically, in other words as personally, as human beings —
new forces have begun to work. No machine in the world
can replace an artist; no loom can weave a Gobelin tapestry
as a skilled artisan does; no photographic apparatus can
produce so good a portrait as a good painter, any more than

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

211

Life. Silver dish by Christian Eriksson. Owned by Dr.
Hjalmar Lundbohm in Kiruna

a music box can take the place of a musician. In recent
times we have come back to a realization of the fact, which
is as clear as day, though so often ignored, that beauty
should brighten all life, that paintings and statues should
be found, not only in museums, but also in offices, in schools,
on street corners, in barracks, and first of all in our homes.
What we need is gifted and capable artists to set the stamp
of beauty on the handicrafts.

Christian Eriksson, born near Arvika, has something of
the strong life-sap of the neo-Renaissance in his art. He
studied in the Technical School in Stockholm, then in Ham-
burg, and finally in Paris, where his talent was given its true
direction. Whether he works in wood or silver, in marble
or iron, he shows original conception and infuses a new,

212

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Dionysos Troup, by Christian Eriksson. Detail from the frieze on
the Dramatic Theatre at Stockholm

modern spirit into his sculpture. Freshness and humor are
found in all that Eriksson has done. Because he puts his
soul into his work, his walking-sticks, goblets, bookcases,

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 213

and locks have the same aesthetic significance as his large
marbles. The relief of Linne, a splendid gift of Herr
P. Fiirstenberg to our National Museum, is one of the most
magnificent pieces of sculpture executed in recent years. In
spite of its large dimensions, it is full of warmth and feeling
and reveals an amazing bravura in the treatment of the
marble. Eriksson's bronze vase Enchantment is one of his
most successful products in industrial art. Like his large
silver dish Life, it bears testimony to the creator's graceful
technique and strong feeling for nature. Among Eriksson's
later works are a piece of sculpture carved in wood, The
Crouching Lapp, in the Gothenburg Museum, and Toe
Dancing, the property of Herr K. O. Bonnier, carved in
light maple, in which he has succeeded in catching an instan-
taneous movement without losing the exceptional beauty of
form. His design over the doorway of the Sundsvall Bank
on the facade facing Fredsgatan in Stockholm shows a man
and a woman — the latter with an uncommonly well-modelled
body and a head full of life and vigor — symbolizing lumber-
ing and shipping. In 1905 Christian Eriksson exhibited the
designs for the pedestals of two flagpoles which are now put
up in Saltsjobaden near Stockholm. One represents summer
sport, the other and more successful one, outdoor life in
winter with sleds and skates. Eriksson has reached his
highest level, perhaps, in the gigantic reliefs that adorn
the facade of the Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. They
depict the origin of the theatre from the Dionysos cult and
the Italian masque, and are filled with beauty and exuberant
life. The opposite mood, piety, resignation, and despair,
is expressed by Eriksson in his gilded bronze figures on
Kiruna Church. The most monumental work he has exe-
cuted is The Archer, done in 19 16, an Engelbrekt memorial
on Kornhamnstorg in Stockholm, in which the chief figure,
instinct with a concentrated and unfaltering will of defense,
is drawing his bow, while the expression of strength and
tenacity is underscored by an ingenious composition. The
reliefs represent the achievements of the Dalecarlian patriot
in the service of freedom.

214

SCANDINAVIAN AR'i

Aron Jerndahl is another good artist who nas developed
from the field of handicraft. Both his small bronze objects
and his large monumental sculptures from the life of work-
ingmen are full of character and modern in the best sense.

Carl J. Eldh was born near Uppsala in 1873. He first
assisted in the restoration of Uppsala Cathedral and later
studied, in the latter half of the nineties, in Paris. In France
he developed his unusual gift for interpreting the qualities of
womanhood, whether of motherly tenderness, of innocent
purity, or of playful provocativeness, the latter most beau-
tifully, perhaps, in the wooden statuette Brita, and in the
Sitting Nude Girl in wood and bronze. Purity of form and
strength of expression mark the high relief Reading, an
unusually distinctive figure of a young woman showing the
repose and concentration that come with reading.

Reading. Relief by Carl J. Eldh, in Kungsholmen High School,
Stockholm

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 215

Among his statues and statuettes are the companion
figures Nils Kreuger with his good-humored assurance and
Karl Nordstrom with his pugnacious toss of the head. The
sketch for the statue of August Strindberg, a gigantic, de-
fiant, naked Titan, dates from 191 6. Eldh's granite reliefs
of playing and bathing boys adorn the exterior of Ostermalm
School in Stockholm. The group Youth with the naked
boy and girl and the statue Young Girl, both in the National
Museum, reveal a tendency toward monumentality during
his later period. In the Gunnar Wennerberg Monument,
erected in Minneapolis and in Stockholm, in 1916, Eldh has
created in an apt and original way an idealized picture of a
student of 1850, full of romanticism, geniality, and self-
confidence. The statue, which is excellently placed near the
bay Djurgardsbrunnsviken in Stockholm, is a gift to the city
by Herr John Josephson.

The Smalander David Edstrom, who returned from
America at the age of twenty-one after a boyhood full of
hardships, studied in Italy, France, and Germany, and de-
veloped into an excellent, though often a fantastic, artist.
There is both strong imagination and feeling for form in
the granite head which he calls Sphinx, and however strained
some of his sculptures may be, many of his portrait heads
— as the figure of Intendant Romdahl — attain an intensity
and sculptural effect which appear to best advantage, per-
haps, in the figure of the financier and art patron, Ernest
Thiel, with its expression of iron will.

One of the foremost of contemporary sculptors, by virtue
of his exuberant creative powers and the originality of his
conceptions, is Carl Milles. He was born near Uppsala
and received his artistic training first in the Technical School
in Stockholm, then during a residence in Paris and Munich.
In Paris, in 1900, Milles executed his first masterpiece, a
delightful little statuette of a Dancer moving with proud
grace, but he made his mark in 1901 with the design for the
Sten Sture Monument which, however, proved difficult to
place suitably. The sketch itself was worked over several
times after 1901.

216

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Ernest Thiel. Bronze bust by David
Edstrom. Owned by Heir Thiel

With graphic realism and with deep psychological pene-
tration, he modelled the portrait bust of Julius Kronberg, in
1904. His groups of elephants, giant lizards, bears, and
many other strangely formed historic and pre-historic,
zoologic and mythologic creatures have a kind of grotesque
monumentality. He has designed bear groups in the form
of two large spheres made, as Michael Angelo would have
them, so that they "could be rolled down a mountain without
breaking." They are placed in the Berzelius Park in Stock-
holm and are a gift of Eva Bonnier.

Milles, who works with marvellous ease, is constantly
seeking new paths. From modelling the exuberantly life-

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

217

like Dancing Children on
the bases of the columns in
the loggia of the Dramatic
Theatre, he turns to the
keen characterization in
the features of the aged
Franzen on the monument
with the lovely group
Selma and Fanny on the
pedestal. This monument
was raised in Harnosand,
in 19 10. An almost im-
pressionistic statue of
Scheele was set up in Kop-
ing, in 19 12, while an
austere conventionalism
marks the well known por-
trait in wood of Levertin's
suffering seer countenance,
in the National Museum.
A stamp of realistic monu-
mentality is found in the
brooding head of the au-
t h o r Gustaf Stridsberg,
which has been cut in
granite in masterly fash-
ion. In the giant figure
of Gustavus Vasa in
painted plaster of Paris,
set up in 1907 in the hall
of Nordiska Museet, the
artist employs a severity
of form which is well
suited to this symbol of
governmental authority and jurisdiction, to him "who built
our Sweden from floor to roof."

In his larger and smaller reliefs and groups in stone or
bronze of women dancers of antiquity Milles employs forms

Scheele.

Statue in bronze by
Carl Milles

218

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Selma and Fanny, by Carl Milles. Group in black granite on the
pedestal of the monument to Franzen at Harnosand

that closely resemble archaic Greek art. For Uppenbarel-
sekyrkan at Saltsjobaden, which has been ornamented with
excellent sculptures by Milles, he has executed two monu-
mental bronze doors, on which he depicts sin and grace with
archaizing naivete in imitation of the door in Hildesheim,
all with wonderful imagination and often with great beauty.

A SURVEY OF SWEmsH ART 219

The Hours of Day and Night. Marble clock by
Carl Milles

It is to be hoped that Milles's gigantic Monument of
Industry, a monumental fountain on which symbolic figures
full of strength in the Michael Angelo-Rodin style ornament
the pedestal, will be erected in Stockholm despite all diffi-
culties that threaten to obstruct it. Upon the facade of En-
skilda Banken in Stockholm, Milles has represented in four
groups, with a kind of conventionalized realism, the periods
of trade development from bartering to world commerce.
The best work, perhaps, among his small pieces of sculpture
is the marble clock made in 19 15 with the hours of Day

220

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Dancers. Stone sculpture by Carl Milles. In the Glyp-
tothek, Copenhagen

and Night in the form of nude, young women carved with
wonderful skill and calling to mind the Hellenic art of the
sixth century before the Christian Era. A feeling for style
is happily combined in this aspiring artist with the fullest
measure of creative genius.

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 221

Eric Rafael-Radberg has executed forcefully sculptured
and well characterized portrait heads in bronze, marble, and
granite, of the sculptor Gustaf Sandberg, Dr. Gregor Pauls-
son, Fru Elizabeth Laurin, and little Gunilla Clason, the
last-named in the National Museum. Elegance and good
taste are characteristic of Otto Strandman. His small
figures in bronze, precious metals, or wood, sometimes com-
bined in one design with artistically formed useful objects,
such as ink-wells and similar things, are modelled with
exquisite charm. In his Workingman, erected in 19 17 in the
Vasa Park in Stockholm, Gottfrid Larsson has succeeded
exceptionally well in his endeavor to introduce the common
laborer into sculpture. Olof Ahlgren has executed char-
acteristic portrait heads in red granite. Upon the tomb-
stone of Alf Wallander near Solna he has carved a mourning
figure in black granite in remarkably harmonious composi-
tion with the socle. Both in a number of small ceramic
drinking fountains in the New Technical School and in a
few sculptural groups, designed in harmony with the build-
ing, Ivar Johnsson, has proved himself one of our most
promising younger sculptors.

Axel Pettersson of Doderhult occupies a unique place.
He is a carver of humorous figures in wood of high artistic
merit. With subtle skill and with a fusion of modernity,
rococo, and Chinese art, Gerhard Henning, a native of
Stockholm, designs miniature figures reproduced by the
Royal Danish Porcelain Company. Henning is also an
etcher of note. Adolf Lindberg has made a very valuable
contribution to the art of medal engraving, which entered a
new golden age in France through Roty and Chaplain. His
medals and portrait medallions show beauty of line as well
as of characterization. They filled a real need at a time
when faded photographs, mediocre woodcuts, or fogged
autotypes were considered good enough to preserve the
features of even eminent men for posterity. His son Erik
Lindberg continues with honor in the same noble and endur-
ing domain of art. The Swedish Nobel medals are from his
hand.

222 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Industrial art is making a stand against all cheap orna-
mentation, and it is particularly in an important field, where
bad taste has been allowed to spread and propagate in the
most unhampered and shameless fashion, namely in the
manufacture of porcelain, that the Stockholm artist Alf
Wallander has done pioneer work for us. Wallander was
a good painter, but he realized that the artist's eye and
his capacity for energetic work have a large mission to per-
form in the industrial arts. Vases, lamps, and dishes
fashioned by him disclose new fields conquered for art, while
in the textile industry also, in woven fabrics, he has made
successful innovations. Of greatest moment, however, is
the contribution he has made to the products of the Ror-
strand factories. He died in 19 14. In the same field,
Gunnar Wennerberg did a similar service for the porcelain
factories of Gustafsberg.

In textile art, the society Handarbetets vanner (the
Friends of Handicraft) has worked successfully, since 1874,
to preserve and revive old methods of weaving, to collect
patterns, and in general to lift needle work to a higher
artistic level. The most important achievement of the
society is undoubtedly its revival of interest in the art of
tapestry weaving, which in its simpler forms had been pre-
served by our peasantry. The only woven piece of tapestry
with a modern figure motif that was made in Sweden during
the nineteenth century was one woven by the above-men-
tioned society after a design by Carl Larsson. It repre-
sents A Catch of Crayfish, executed with exquisite taste
and skill, both landscape and figures being slightly conven-
tionalized. The tapestry is hung in the Museum of Indus-
trial Arts in Copenhagen.

ARCHITECTURE AT THE OPENING OF THE
TWENTIETH CENTURY

BOTH private and public buildings erected in the sixties
and seventies were, as a rule, without artistic signifi-
cance, and the cheap materials employed often
entailed a careless treatment of details. The most note-
worthy activity was the rebuilding or so-called restoration of
our old churches. This was usually carried out on the theory
that, when the date of the original building had been deter-
mined, all subsequent additions should be removed, where-
upon the church should be provided in the cheapest possible
way with spire and ornaments in the original style as the
restorers supposed it would have looked had it been com-
pleted all at once. These restorations, often based on the
most thorough knowledge, have resulted in robbing the
churches of their historical interest and the venerable per-
sonal character they once had — and all in the name of
historical style ! It was after an inspection of Uppsala
Cathedral, which had been restored in the nineties, that
an English authority remarked in a technical journal, "I
realize now that something worse than fire may befall a
building."

Helgo Zetterwall, who died in 1907, devoted himself with
great zeal and energy, but with little success, to restoration
work. The stately building of the North Latin School in
Stockholm was erected by him in 1880 in the style of the
Florentine Renaissance. The handsome Renaissance fagade
of Skandinaviska Kreditaktiebolaget in Stockholm, facing

223

224 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Storkyrkobrinken, was constructed in 1876 by Ernst Jacobs-
son, who died in 1905. Artificial stone with half columns of
porphyry was used for material. During the eighties it was
the custom to allow the wall surfaces to remain unplastered,
exposing the brick, and to limit the plastering to window
casements or else to construct these of cut stone. The latter
was used in the University House in Uppsala, which was
erected in 1887 by Herman Holmgren. The magnificent
main entrance makes a very imposing impression with its
large dimensions and excellent materials.

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century,
there was great activity both in private and public construc-
tion in Sweden, not least in the rapidly growing capital. A
number of schools, banks, and barracks were erected, among
the latter the barracks of the Horse Guards on Sturevagen
near Stockholm by Erik Josephsson. He also built in the
French baroque style the stately new bank edifice of Skandi-
naviska Kreditaktiebolaget. This building forms a part of
the surroundings of Gustaf Adolfs torg — a square which
has unfortunately suffered in architectonic respects by the
demolition of the old Opera House. The interior produces
a severe, imposing effect, with its huge Doric columns which
occupy the centre of the background. Stress is laid upon
beauty of form and materials with sumptuous simplicity and
without regard to cost. The Workingmen's Institute in
Stockholm, which was erected in an admirable way by Carl
Moller, should also be mentioned.

A large number of tenement houses were built at this time
along our streets. The fagades were over-loaded with de-
generate neo-Renaissance ornaments of mechanical make,
often of cement, which after a year or two precipitates a
salt that disfigures the walls by large white spots. Often the
architect was ignored by the contractor. The watch-word
became "speed and cheapness," and in most cases a building
was put up without even a thought of consulting an artis-
tically trained architect. Beautiful old houses were torn
down without the slightest reverence; straight thorough'
fares were made to cut each other at right angles; and a

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 225

deadly dullness spread ever the small towns that were for-
merly so charming, over the ruined country churches, and
over the new quarters in Stockholm. But even then a gen-
eration of architects was growing up, who combined thor-
ough technical studies with a keen desire to reinstate beauty
in its proper place, and, besides, to reintroduce natural
stone.

The prestige of architects has increased considerably
during the last decades. We are beginning to realize that
an artistically trained expert should, if ever, be consulted
in the construction of buildings that are to beautify or dis-
figure a city for centuries. Stockholm has had the misfor-
tune that its largest monumental building of our time has
been placed in such a way as to conceal partly and take away
from the effect of the Royal Palace, contrary to the wishes
of almost all architects and others trained in matters of
art. This has from the beginning made many distrustful of
the Riksdag building, for which designs were drawn by
Aron Johansson. One would have preferred to have had
this building different and situated somewhere else.

The so-called Danviks Hospital, erected with fine taste
by Aron Johansson, is exceptionally impressive, and has
been given a splendid location commanding the harbor of
Stockholm. The only trouble is that the form and purpose
of the building do not harmonize. A home for the aged
poor should not appear like a palace, although it is an
especially pleasing sense of humanity that makes the public
provide, not only a suitable, but also a comfortable home
for those who have worked themselves tired and old with-
out economic success. In Denmark and Germany we find
pleasant homes for the aged, but not very often in Sweden.

The Opera House of Gustavus III has been replaced by
a. very large and very expensive building erected after plans
by Axel Anderberg. The wall surfaces are finished in
plaster, but with window casements and pilasters of stone.
The style is a variety of the baroque and, in part, gives a
very good effect. The interior has an unusually beautiful
and imposing vestibule, but the auditorium and the lobby

226

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Adelsward House in Stockholm, designed by Gustav Clason

are impaired by showy gilding and very conventional deco-
rations. The lobby, however, is brightened by Carl Lars-
son's fresh-colored paintings in the ceiling and the lunettes.
The royal lobby is ornamented by good decorative paintings
by Prince Eugen and Georg Pauli. Anderberg has created
an exceptionally dignified and suitable ensemble of brick
buildings in the stately edifice of the Swedish Museum,
dedicated in 191 6, and in the neighboring establishments
and houses of the Academy of Sciences in Frescati near
Stockholm. The expensive, over-decorated marble building
of the Dramatic Theatre, beautified by much good art and

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 227

disfigured by poor art, is a work of Fredrik Lilljekvist.

The Nordiska Museet building at the entrance to Djur-
garden in Stockholm, "this giant offspring of one man's
energy," was completed in 1907. Everything there, from
the foundation to the ceiling, is of the very best material.
With its gables calling to mind the Vasa age, its genuine
Swedish character, and the huge dimensions of its hall, this
edifice is an ornament to the city and an honor to the North.
Isac Gustav Clason, a native of Dalecarlia, after whose
drawings Nordiska Museet was erected, has also made very
important contributions to residential architecture. The
enormous Biinsow House near Strandvagen, constructed
after a motif from the French neo-Renaissance, is perhaps
the first apartment house in Stockholm in which both the
material — brick and sandstone — and the style are of a dig-
nified character. In imitation of forms from the Swedish
residential architecture of the seventeenth century, Clason
has created one of our most celebrated and substantial
private residences, the Adelsward house at 2 Drottning-
gatan. Clason has also built Sweden's only private palace
of the nineteenth century, the magnificent residence of Count
W. v. Hallvyl. The facade of reddish sandstone points to
Spanish forms; the portal is constructed of smooth-cut
granite in imposing dimensions, and above it is enblazoned
the family coat-of-arms. The house is finished throughout
with costly luxuriousness — a real palace in the midst of so-
called palaces. Clason's activity as an architect has been of
the greatest significance. He has emphasized the impor-
tance of the materials, and has done exceptional work in
purifying the general taste. In the mighty forms of the
Norrkoping Town Hall, which was constructed of brick,
in 1910, Clason has given an imposing expression of public
dignity and power. The Centralbank on Gustaf Adolfs torg
in Stockholm was finished in 19 14. The plans were drawn
by Clason in French baroque and became the determining
style for the north side of the marketplace.

The Davidson House on Gustaf Adolfs torg, with its
sandstone facade, was erected in 1886 by Gustaf Lindgren.

228 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Among monumental edifices the building of the Academy of
Arts, designed by Erik Lallerstedt, occupies a conspicuous
place by virtue of its tasteful exterior ornamentation in the
Italian neo-Renaissance. The Kungsholmen Municipal
Building, of exquisite material and beautiful proportions,
and the Vasteras-Bergslags Railroad Building in Stockholm,
with its unique roof, are also designed by him. His most
distinguished work is the palatial building of the Trygg In-
surance Company in Stockholm, completed in 1909. Both
its forms and material bespeak a solidity which from all
viewpoints — not least from an artistic one — inspires confi-
dence. Lallerstedt is the creator of the imposing Technical
High School in Stockholm, which is a credit to our engineers
as well as to the architect himself.

Several business offices were erected soon after 1890.
The most satisfactory from an aesthetic and practical point
of view is the Centralpalats in Stockholm, constructed of
Orsa sandstone with a framework of iron. The architect,
Ernst Stenhammar, also built the Hotel Royal whose winter-
garden court, by its impressiveness and its picturesque
motifs, calls to mind the Venetian palaces, and is probably
from the standpoint of pure beauty one of the most magnifi-
cent places of its kind in the world. Ludvig Peterson has
done good work in .the architecture of private buildings. In
1889 he erected the Hoganas warehouse in Stockholm of
brick in various colors, and was particularly successful in
giving to it an expression of massive power, thereby ingeni-
ously letting the material itself advertise the goods sold
inside. Peterson also designed the plans of Konstnarshuset
(the Artists' House) in Stockholm.

Ferdinand Boberg, born in Dalecarlia, is an architect
who, notwithstanding his obvious admiration for the archi-
tecture of America and Spain, seeks new forms. At the
Exposition in Stockholm, in 1897, his white Spanish Hall of
Arts, with its decorations, its loggia, and the interior with
imposing perspectives beneath the nobly-formed vaults,
aroused general admiration. The Industrial Arts Building,
in 1909, in Stockholm, was a work of perfect unity and

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

229

Portal of the Electrical Works in Stockholm, de-
signed by Ferdinand Boberg

impressiveness. This time also Boberg imitated the Span-
ish; dazzling white walls encircled picturesque courts. The
main architectural scheme of the Malmo Exposition in 19 14
was Boberg's creation. It was finished in white with motifs
from church walls and with corbie-step gables, and had a
majestic art hall of severe, dignified simplicity. Of more
substantial material is his Electrical Works in Stockholm.
The portal toward Regeringsgatan indicates, by its orna-
mentation of wires and incandescent lamps carved in huge
blocks of limestone, the purpose of the building, and every
detail suggests that it is a place for the generation of a
mighty natural power. Boberg's Post Office in Stockholm

230 SCANDINAVIAN ART

has that combination of massive strength with a goldsmith's
delicacy of ornamentation which is the distinguishing mark
of his art. In the Malmo Post Office Boberg has again
created a building that is an ornament to the city. He has
also been very successful in Rosenbad near Norrstrom,
where the external decoration and the color scheme — white
and green — are both extraordinarily original, and, what
is more important, beautiful. Boberg's energetic efforts to
give even factory buildings an attractive form has been of
great significance. His Gas Works near Vartan gives an
impression of massive power eminently suitable for a struc-
ture of that kind. Some of Boberg's designs are in a sense
inorganic and lacking in monumental qualities. This is
particularly noticeable in Prince Vilhelm's residence at
Djurgarden, in which neighborhood he has also designed the
residences of Prince Eugen and Herr Ernest Thiel.

Through the splendid generosity of the banker, Knut
Wallenberg, Uppenbarelsekyrkan was built in Saltsjobaden
after designs by Boberg, and decorated lavishly with exqui-
site works of art. The interior is a combination of grandeur
and sanctity, two qualities that may be united in the Byzan-
tine church style, but are seldom found in the churches con-
structed in our day. Byzantine influence is clearly revealed
both in the interior architectural forms and in the decora-
tions executed by Hjortzberg.

Boberg has designed the palatial business building of
Nordiska Kompaniet in Stockholm, built with solid and
expensive simplicity, and with a practical application of what
German and American technique has accomplished in this
field. Reliefs by Milles, symbolizing different phases of
trade and commerce, adorn the facade facing Hamngatan.
Boberg's sketches of interesting old houses, bridges, mills,
blacksmith shops, and so on, will form an excellent work of
historical importance.

Carl Westman was born in Uppsala. After studying and
practising his profession in North America, he returned and
by his virile and purposeful work has become one of our
most important architects. Westman built the sanatorium

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 231

The Court-house of Stockholm, designed by Carl West-
man

Romanas, near Sommen in Smaland, and the house of the
Medical Association, in Stockholm, where every detail, such
as lattice-work, light fixtures, and the like was given its

232 SCANDINAVIAN ART

characteristic touch by the artist himself. He was also a
furniture designer. Hogberga, where the art patron
Fahraeus lives among his wonderful collections of Swedish,
Norwegian, French, and Chinese art, is Westman's work.
This brick building is situated near the channel on Lidingo,
and makes a stately appearance from the top of the hill
overlooking the Japanized, pine-covered terraces. These
three edifices, all so different but equally perfect, have dem-
onstrated to us the value of Carl Westman. His master-
piece, however, is the Stockholm Court-house, near Scheele-
gatan on Kungsholmen, completed in 19 15. This mighty
structure, looming in the austere solemnity proper for its
serious purpose, is topped by a huge tower covered with
copper. The upper part of the main portal is adorned with
figures representing the judge and two guilty prisoners,
sculptured by Christian Eriksson; the lower part is beautified
by excellent, strongly conventionalized small reliefs by
Gustav Sandberg, representing the Seven Deadly Sins.

Huge dimensions, smooth surfaces suggestive of Vadstena
Abbey, a certain severity in the ornamentation as is fitting
in a house of law, a genuinely Swedish quality together with
freshness and boldness of execution, all contribute to make
Stockholm's Court-house a work of special significance in
what it presages* for modern Swedish architecture. The
interior harmonizes with the exterior. It is very substantial
in its appointments with both amusing and exquisite details,
often full of meaning, as, for example, the colossal Vala's
Column, an enormous block of stone sculptured by Sand-
berg, on which the wisdom of the Eddas concerning crime
and final atonement is represented in extremely conventional-
ized low reliefs; and the room where marriages are per-
formed, which is ornamented with graceful and imaginative
paintings by Filip Mansson. The same vigor and solidity
that characterize the Court-house are found in Westman's
Museum of Industrial Arts in Gothenburg.

The Stockholmer Ragnar Ostberg belongs to the Swedish
architects who are keenly interested in all vital architecture,
whether old or new, and has trained himself in his profes-

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART

233

Ostermalm Technical High School in Stockholm, designed by Ragnar

Ostberg

sion by travelling — often on a bicycle — in almost every part
of Europe. While respecting tradition as well as materials,
he aims to create houses in harmony with what our time
and our country have a right to demand in the way of genu-
ineness and impressiveness. Among the beautiful homes
that Ostberg has built we may note the solid mansion of
Dr. Pauli, at Djursholm, constructed with dignified sim-
plicity of brick. He has been exceptionally happy in the
manner in which he has united and rebuilt, to form the
Bonnier residence, two adjoining houses in Djurgarden, pre-
serving and increasing the homelike comfort of the old struc-
tures. For Herr Thorsten Laurin he has erected, also in
Djurgarden, a silver-grey wooden house with shingled walls
and roof covered with green-glazed tiles. The house forms
a happy and firm composition with the knoll upon which
it rests.

In the beautiful Odd Fellow House in Nykoping and in
the Ostermalm Technical High School in Stockholm he has

234 SCANDINAVIAN ART

made use of an artistic form of undressed brick surfaces.
This school building, completed in 19 10, is one of the most
satisfying examples of Swedish architecture of recent date.
A brick wall, resting upon a foundation of uncut stones and
boulders, separates the school and playground from the out-
side world. The reddish-brown walls of the building itself
are masoned of hand-made Halsingborg brick upon a gran-
ite base. The curb-roof is covered with tile. The interior,
with its cross-vaulted passages, gives an impression of purity
and solemnity, calling to mind the fact that our Swedish
schools had their origin in the medieval church. The main
staircase is sumptuously adorned with noble works of art
by Prince Eugen, Milles, Tdrneman, and Georg Pauli.
The main auditorium, in white with panels of dark blue
Dutch tiles, is borne up by grooved granite columns. Rag-
nar Ostberg has drawn the plans that were unanimously
accepted for the Stockholm Town Hall. The high
square tower is reflected in Malaren and proclaims far and
wide that here stands a building which the largest and most
beautiful city of the peninsula may proudly call its own.

The architect Elis Benckert has designed furniture with
unusual feeling for form and exceptionally fine taste. Un-
fortunately his promising career was broken off prematurely
by his death in 19 13, but what he did in the furnishing of the
Stockholm Municipal Building has exercised a strong influ-
ence upon artistic Swedish handicraft. The architect, Carl
Malmsten, in a number of excellently made pieces of furni-
ture, such as cabinets, writing tables, and secretaries, has
discovered the happiest forms, and has effected a fusion of
old and new most conspicuous in his exquisitely artistic
inlaid work.

Lars Wahlman, besides designing a number of stately
country palaces — Hjularod near Lund in the medieval
French castle style and Tjoloholm in Halland in the English
style — has made a name for himself by his exceptionally
good solution of the church building problem of our time.
The Engelbrekt Church, completed in 19 14, has an unusu-
ally picturesque location commanding a view of northern

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 235

Stockholm. Although the steps and terraces approaching
the building are wanting in ample dimensions, the exterior
and, perhaps even more, the interior have a certain richness
and a religious atmosphere. The mighty vaults with their
pure lines and the artistic decorations — mural paintings by
Hjortzberg in a style suggestive of the Byzantine — make
this Stockholm church one of our country's most successful
ecclesiastical structures of modern times.

Following the lines of Visby's city wall, Torben Grut,
born in Vastergotland, designed Sweden's imposing athletic
building, the Stadium, where our nation won its victories
at the Olympic Games in 19 12. In the brick walls, at once
beautiful and severe, Grut created an excellent Swedish
frame for this play with its under-current of seriousness.
Sigfrid Ericson has made a name in church architecture by
his wonderfully well placed and almost fortress-like Mast-
huggskyrka (Beacon Church) — a stronghold of the spirit
— which may be seen far out to sea upon approaching his
native city, Gothenburg.

Ivar Tengbom first aroused attention by his Town Hall
in Boras. But it was in the construction of the substantial,
palatial home of the Enskilda Bank near Kungstradgarden
in Stockholm that he attained a rank of the first order among
the architects of our land. The building harmonizes in
architectural composition with a house situated on the other
side of Wahrendorffsgatan. It is constructed of black
granite extending for a considerable distance up the facade,
and finished off above that with a coat of light grey plaster.
The forms are somewhat reminiscent of the neo-antique.
The central portion of the facade is adorned with columns,
which support symbolic reliefs, all in black granite. Money
has been called "the result of labor," and this money palace
has more of the severity and seriousness of labor than of
the splendor of gold. The large banking hall in dark and
light polished stone, limestone and marble, is very imposing
in its dimensions and in its subdued but sumptuous decora-
tions. Solidity, strength, good taste, and efficiency are
characteristics of this building, and these are qualities we

236

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Enskilda Bank in Stockholm, designed by Ivar Tengbom

desire both in our economic and not less in our artistic life.
During the last decades, the conviction has gained ground
in a few places in Europe, that style and a more general
aesthetic influence in our communities can only be attained
through good architecture. In the development of the
home, the private dwelling-house, both the interior and the

A SURVEY OF SWEDISH ART 237

exterior, there is no people that has worked more success-
fully than the English. When it comes to municipal archi-
tecture and monumental buildings, on the other hand, a
severe style has perhaps found its most magnificent applica-
tion in the new buildings of German cities. Denmark, also,
has enjoyed a very sound architectural evolution, in which
harmony and self-restraint — which spell good taste — have
been more evident than in most other places. Nor can it
be denied that Swedish architecture — by virtue of good
material, big conceptions, and a large number of artists who
possess creative genius and yet base their art on national
traditions — has had and is having a golden period. It is
now one of the best in the world, and we can only hope that
we shall be able to protect the relatively little of the old that
we have left, all the more precious to us because it is so little.
We may hope, too, that while due attention is paid to the
practical and economic, the aesthetic viewpoint, which is so
essential to our intellectual welfare, be further encouraged
and promoted by energetic architects. Then we shall per-
haps attain a modern Swedish style with all that this implies
of national health and stability of culture.

DANISH ART IN THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY

By
EMIL HANNOVER

Director of The Danish Museum of Industrial Art

DANISH ART IN THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY

By Emil Hannover

THE PERIOD BEFORE ECKERSBERG

DURING the Middle Ages and the period of the
Renaissance, art in little Denmark, even when prac-
tised by Danes, remained hardly more than a feeble
reflection of the art of larger countries, or of countries
which set the artistic standards of the time. Necessarily, of
course, it adapted itself to the humbler needs of Denmark,
and, in special cases, developed distinctive forms which
would scarcely be met with outside of the Danish bounda-
ries; but even as late as the rococo period Denmark had
produced no art that could be called truly Danish in spirit
and character.

Pilo, who was a Swede by birth, shows in his portraits a
purely French style. Als, who went to Rome at a time when
the antique was beginning to engage men's minds, belongs as
a portrait painter to the European period of transition be-
tween rococo and classicism. In the style of Vigilius Erich-
sen's portraits we find still more marked evidence of the
conflicting currents which then swayed the world. And as
for the art of Abildgaard, it is not Danish either; although
his calm endeavor to attain the grand style gives his work
an appeal which is lacking in Fiissli's or Mengs's, it was by
those artists, none the less, that he was most potently in-

241

242

SCANDINAVIAN ART

fluenced. The greatest merit of his scholarly painting is
that it raised the level of taste in the representation of the
human figure. Even when the mannerism of his drawing,
the elongation of his proportions, is most pronounced, there
is a dignified bearing and a ceremonious rhythm in his
figures; granting that his mannerism is a detriment to his
style, at least it is his own. He showed less individuality
in his coloring, which was the result of comprehensive study
of the great colorists of old. Yet he had a strong sense of

Ossian, by N. A. Abildgaard

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 243

the decorative value of color, and a natural gift for general
decorative effect. In his big paintings at the Christiansborg
Palace in Copenhagen his skilful use of color is in contrast
to his fantastic notion of the quantity of allegorical inven-
tion that a picture can bear. On the whole, one may fairly
say that there is more reason to honor him for unusually high
purpose than for any outstanding natural talent.

All that nature withheld from Abildgaard — the freshness,
the geniality, the true artistic temperament, the genuine
professional talent and the genuine professional training —
all this was united in Juel. He knew the joy that comes to
the possessor of a great natural gift, and although he mis-
used his gift during his later years by the wholesale produc-
tion of portraits which were often empty and flat, even these
show the enjoyment he felt in the exercise of his accurate
eye and his easy, delicate hand. There is something infec-
tious in his delight in his work, and also in his amiability.
Since his time portrait painting has gained in sobriety, and
to the modern eye the people in his pictures undoubtedly
seem more festive than he ever intended that they should.
In his own day, however, his portrait painting marked a
complete break from the fashion of the preceding age; it
was a gigantic stride toward the close approach to life as it
really is, whereas the earlier period had held itself aloof
and superior, in an attitude of condescension toward the
beholder. Juel was probably the first painter to present
a distinguished man in his dressing-gown — in his portrait
of Bonnet, the Genevan philosopher.

He sometimes became saccharine in his coloring, finicky
in his drawing, all too ready to make concessions to public
taste. Yet there is a little series of portrait sketches which
shows that he might have become a pioneer in coloring, too.
Unfortunately, the mastery, the freedom from conven-
tionality, the strongly progressive trend, which these
sketches display, did not develop in Juel's portrait painting.
He had to take to an entirely different field, to landscape,
before he could let himself go and satisfy the longing for
fresh air which his mind was cleanly enough to feel, even

244

SCANDINAVIAN ART

though it seemed that his proper element was the close
atmosphere of the drawing-room. We may well believe
that he was imbued with the ideas of Rousseau, for he had
lived for some years in Rousseau's city and in the house of
one of Rousseau's disciples. However that may be, his
attitude toward nature was essentially Rousseau's. He was
most strongly moved by the vast and phenomenal aspects of
nature. He rarely made any deep study of single landscape

Portrait of the Philosopher Bonnet, by Jens Juel

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 245

Farmhouse in a Gathering Storm, by Jens Juel

motifs, but he was sensitive to the moods of nature, and he
felt the spirit of Danish landscape earlier and more acutely
than any of his contemporaries.

In other and broader conditions, a man of such capacity,
one of the most talented Danish artists that has ever lived,
would undoubtedly have developed along different lines,
and might have become a painter of European importance.
Carstens (not to mention Thorvaldsen) , has shown us how
the power of native Danish genius may expand in a climate
more favorable to art than that of Denmark. Unfortu-
nately Carstens turned away from Denmark as he devel-
oped, and his significance in relation to his native country is
limited to his significance in relation to Thorvaldsen.

If the other Danish painters who preceded Eckersberg
may claim an introduction to the public outside Denmark,
it can be only perfunctory. Both the portraits and the land-
scapes of Erik Pauelsen, painted in a style common to all
Europe, point backward rather than forward. As a typical
example of all that was required to fulfill the modest de-
mands on art of eighteenth century Denmark, we have
Lorentzen, with his views from all corners of the world, his

246 SCANDINAVIAN ART

pictures on subjects from the history of the North, and his
portraits. Only a few of the later ones show any tendency
toward more thorough characterization; these few are, in
a way, Eckersberg before Eckersberg; they are more nearly
in his spirit than the portraits painted by Hornemann —
quite as able an artist — in his latest years under the direct
influence of the torch-bearer of Danish art.

On the rest of the older men who lived on into his time,
Eckersberg made little if any impression. There is a slight
trace in the work from the i82o's of Hans Hansen, a pupil
or imitator of Juel's, of little ability. As an historical
painter, Kratzenstein-Stub formed his style after Thorvald-
sen's; as a portrait painter, more or less after Gerard's.
Fritzsch, the painter of flowers, got his style, his effective
composition, and the free swing of his brush from Monnoyer
and other seventeenth century French or Dutch flower spe-
cialists. Gebauer, likewise, had studied the galleries more
diligently than nature. He by no means lacked delicate
and romantic feeling for the animals and the landscapes he
painted, but he did lack the courage to depend on his own
impressions. In composition and in coloring he followed
his Dutchmen to the end.

The art of the outgoing period thus persisted, to some
extent, into the first years of the nineteenth century in Den-
mark. The majority of its devotees, however, wore out
their moribund existence in the shadow, taking no place in
the light of truth which Eckersberg' s art spread abroad like
the brightness of day; in this light the seedlings of future
Danish art were sprouting and growing green in abundance.

ECKERSBERG

BORN in 1783 at Blaakrog in Slesvig in poor circum-
stances, Eckersberg was a needy student at the Acad-
emy of Art in Copenhagen, until he started out in
1 8 10 on his journey to Paris and Rome. He remained
abroad until 18 16, and experienced a complete transforma-
tion of his ideas, in the course of which his artistic person-
ality finally emerged in crystalline clarity.

Despite a superficial sympathy for the classicism of his
time, with which he came in close contact first while a pupil
of David in Paris and later when he was in friendly asso-
ciation with Thorvaldsen in Rome, his character as an artist
formed itself round his faculty for the reproduction of
external nature, which he owed to his extraordinary eyes.
The first distinct expression of this gift is in his Views of
Rome. The secret of these studies is that there is nothing
secret in them. Eckersberg painted just what he saw, but
now for the first time he saw entirely with his own eyes, and
his own eyes were marvellously perfect organs. It was as
if nature had fitted them with something that worked like
a telescope, giving them longer range than ordinary eyes.
He could see distant objects as clearly and sharply as those
that were near, and he observed so accurately that one would
think he must have used some optical instrument instead of
mere unassisted human vision. Eckersberg's sound con-
stitution partly explains the phenomenon. Entirely devoid
of nervousness, he received all impressions calmly and im-
perturbably; nothing could give him a shock, nothing could
influence him or color what he saw or obscure it or warp it

247

248

SCANDINAVIAN ART

View at Villa Borghese, by C. V. Eckersberg

to fit some subjective interpretation rather than the objective
reality.

This fixity of vision was so intense that it amounted almost
to genius. Yet Eckefsberg did not really attain genius. He
lacked the ability to let the visible reality rise up phoenix-
like from his work in a more beautiful form. Only once in
his life did he have a real inspiration: when he painted his
three-quarter-length portrait of Thorvaldsen. On this one
occasion a higher power came to his assistance, unknown to
him. The observer, for once, became something of a seer.

He did not again rise above himself like this. It was the
homely virtues, amiability, righteousness, diligence, and
sense of duty, which throve best in the quiet atmosphere of
his sitting-room. To his brush nothing was insignificant.
For fear of missing something, he avoided half-lights and
chiaroscuro. Only in the clear, sober light of day could
Eckersberg satisfy his keenest passion as an artist, the desire
for study, or, as he called it himself, for "research."

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 249

Portrait of Thorvaldsen, by Eckersberg

It was not the heart and reins that he searched as a por-
trait painter, but everything that he could actually see with
his eyes. If one remembers that the Danes have always
been known for their homely simplicity, that their simplicity
has never been more homely than at the period when Eckers-
berg drew, and that no people have ever been drawn by an
artist who had more of the virtues of this same homely
simplicity than Eckersberg himself, one will appreciate how
typically, intensely, the Danish character is brought out in

250

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Nathanson Family, by Eckersberg

his portraits. That is one of the discoveries to which he was
led unconsciously — one might almost say blindly if it were
not particularly due to his eyes — by his constant insistence
on going to the bottom in his search for truth. It goes with-
out saying that this discovery is one of the greatest of which
the history of Danish art can boast.

This fresh, primal point of view, which is what produces
in the earlier stages of an art the pioneers who give direc-
tion to subsequent tendencies, led him to other discoveries
besides this of the Danish Type. He is also the discoverer
of Danish country and of the Danish sea.

His passion for the sea began as a passion for ships. He
was interested in mechanics and construction, and in ship-
ping he found a wide field for this interest. His first ma-
rines, accordingly, are rather pictures of ships than of the
sea. With complete familiarity his brush hovered about
the full-rigged masts, flitted in a delighted rope-dance along
hundreds of stays and halyards and ratlines, all drawn with-
out the faintest tremor of the hand. Soon the sea became
as interesting to him as the ships. He found in it a wholly

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 251

Portrait of Madame Schmidt, by Eckersberg

new subject for that "research" with which his art was be-
coming more and more identical, and he acquired a thorough
knowledge of it in a scientific way. It is obvious that there
can be no great spontaneity to pictures that have required
in advance an extraordinary amount of deliberation, that

252

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of Froken Marsmann, by Eckersberg

conceal under their paint a network of structural lines.
Not until old age had impaired his sight — probably because
of his constant use of a telescope — did he go through a brief
phase, when his eyes were reduced to what might be called
normal vision, in which he painted a little series of marines
of a more pictorial character. All the energy that he had
formerly devoted to detail was in these works concentrated
on the reproduction of the general effect which he saw with
his once analytical eyes. It seems as if he had had to scale
his over-acute sight down to normal before he could focus
on the great striking truth of nature which he had long
sought but never quite attained : the color of the Danish

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 253

A Privateer Chasing a Frigate, by Eckersberg

seas when the Danish sounds grow blue under a summer
sky and the summer sun flashes on the white sails that en-
circle the green islands of Denmark.

He made his discoveries on land more quickly, more
easily, and more incidentally. When he took it into his head,
on a fine September day, to have a look at the green trees
of the Dyrehaven beechwoods before the coming of autumn,
or when his pupils induced him to go with them on one of
their excursions, he would inevitably make use of the occa-
sion to do a little color-sketch. What he brought back in
his thumb-box was only a trifle in comparison to the wealth
of remembered detail that he poured out on his sketch
when he got it home and worked it up on canvas. He was at
times too lavish in his sheer exuberant delight in the small
things of nature, hitherto neglected in Danish landscape
painting. It is easy to see in his finished landscapes that
they were not completed in the open. They are products
of the heart, and of the studio. Such treatment, however,
was not unsuitable to the happy, idyllic aspect of Danish
country which he preferred to paint. Entirely untrained,

254

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Renbjerg Brickyard, by Eckersberg

self-taught as a landscape painter, unaffected by rules and
methods, with his hitherto unused and therefore fresh per-
ception of nature and his love for his native land, he could
penetrate further into Danish nature than any of his prede-
cessors. He was the first to strike with sure, firm touch the
dominant color chord in the harmony of Danish landscape.

These discoveries of his, the unchanging characteristics
of the Danish people and the physiognomy of Danish land
and Danish sea, were far greater contributions than any-
thing in the big historical paintings and altar-pieces which
he himself regarded as his highest achievements. His art
was all prose, but it was great prose. His form is beautiful
because it is natural; it is natural because it is the most accu-
rate and immediate expression of his spirit. The consistency
between the spirit and the form of his art bespeaks the
undeviating truthfulness which is the essence of his character.

On this same inherent truthfulness, as on an imperishable
foundation, stands the school which Eckersberg established.

Ill

ECKERSBERG'S SCHOOL

THERE were three men virtually contemporary with
Eckersberg of whom one took his place in the evo-
lution of Danish art very late, another never took any
place at all, while the third attained a very prominent posi-
tion apart from the general trend. The first of the three
was I. P. Moller, a landscape painter, who in his old age,
under the influence of younger landscape painters, attained
a better understanding of Danish nature, and somewhat
outgrew his earlier artificial manner. The second was I. L.
Lund, who a few years before Eckersberg, had likewise
worked under David, but had not been so fortunate in seiz-
ing and fostering the realistic spirit of David's teaching. He
became professor at the Academy of Art, but did not offer
any such attraction to the rising generation of painters as
Eckersberg, who became professor at the same time. A bet-
ter example for the young was the third of these artists,
C. A. Jensen. His special gift was insight swift as lightning,
happily combined with a dazzlingly clever technique. These
two characteristics gave him exceptional qualification as a
portrait painter, but they also brought him more popularity
than was altogether good for him. His profundity had
never been great, and as the years went on his portraits
became mere rapid sketches. Yet in these swift sketches
his insight is so sure and his drawing so brilliant that he
often reminds us of no less a personage than Frans Hals.

The inevitable reflection of such a shining phenomenon
in the skies of Danish art may be seen here and there in the
painting of the younger men — frequently in Kobke, occa-

255

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SCANDINAVIAN ART

sionally in Marstrand and Roed. But these are only transi-
tory gleams compared with the steady and constant light
that radiates from Eckersberg's work upon the great circle
of his pupils.

It was in the late twenties and the early thirties that

Eckersberg's school
reached its fullest
bloom. His best
pupils at that time
were Rorbye, Roed,
Bendz, Kobke, Petz-
holdt, Adam Miil-
ler, Kikhler, Con-
stantin Hansen,
Eddelien, and Mar-
strand. For all
these men the day
that they entered
the master's atelier
was of far-reaching
significance. They
learned there that
the first rule of
painting is inviola-
ble truthfulness in
the representation
of a subject. They
learned, further, that this depends not on what is represented,
but on how it is represented. They also learned, in this
connection, the value of loving study of the smallest details
of nature. Lastly, they learned that only what lies near at
hand lies near enough to the heart to be loved and to be
painted.

Naturally they had already in their youth tendencies
toward the individual differences which later became evident
in their work, but their pictures have far less the stamp of
individuality than of the period and the school. It is, per-
haps, the glimpses of individuality, naively revealed with the

Portrait of the Scene Painter Troels Lund,
by C. A. Jensen

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 257

shy and delicate grace of unconsciousness, which give to the
paintings produced by Eckersberg's pupils in the thirties their
greatest charm.

Among their pictures from this period portraits are the
most numerous and perhaps the best. In these the sense of
form is penetrating, the drawing delicate, the coloring fresh,
the brushwork meticulous, the interpretation of character
serious, direct, sincere, simple, wholesome, and clean. The
same may be said of their genre paintings, mostly scenes
from the streets and houses of Copenhagen (rarely, how-
ever, from peasant life, which was left to a later generation) ,
full of homeliness and warmth, seldom with any significance
— the pictorial was always the most important considera-
tion— invariably presented in a quiet and unaffected man-
ner, with no suggestion of straining after effect. How easily
these young painters managed to be genuine and natural !
All the forces that co-operate in the production of a work of
art were then in a state of young and blameless innocence.
Even nature was still almost untouched in Denmark, and
consequently seemed more virginal than it does to-day, now

The Finck Coffee-house at Munich, by Vilhelm Bendz

258 SCANDINAVIAN ART

that its beauty has been so often unveiled, and so often pro-
faned, in our paintings. The little landscapes that we owe
to this school therefore have an effect on one's mind like that
of morning and dew on one's senses. Their spirit is so
ethereal that one cannot conceive of it except as pertaining to
just such an era of dawn as that from which they sprang.

In every field these young eyes now discovered new pic-
torial beauties, and they were often more fastidious in such
matters than the less experienced Eckersberg had been at
their age. The observers of color were Bendz and Kobke.
Bendz, who unfortunately died very young, did not leave
much work, but what he left is of the highest artistic
quality. The greatest difference between him and Eckers-
berg was that he had a stronger sense of the effect of atmos-
phere in color than he had of color itself. In his work,
where, significantly enough, we find the first attempt in Dan-
ish art to present scenes with artificial lighting, the most
important characteristic is the delicate perception of pictorial
effect. That does not imply that the characterization in his
portraits is inadequate, or that there was anything lukewarm
in his feeling for life when he painted everyday scenes. Still,
if one were seeking the point at which he comes in closest
contact with the world about him, one might find it in his
eye rather than in his heart.

Kobke is richer and warmer; his feeling for the things
about him was at least as much in his heart as in his eye. He
possessed the gift, so priceless to an artist, of a heart of gold,
and it was in one of the most inestimable feelings of the
heart of a man of the people, in the love of home and
all that belongs to it, that his art had its deepest root. To
him, the family at home, the kinsmen and the friends who
cross the threshold, are half the world; the other half is
the idyllic surroundings of his home. Among his most beau-
tiful paintings are pictures of his parents, his relatives, and
his friends, painted with the most complete sympathy. Even
the strangers whom he might occasionally paint to order
look as if they had been his nearest and dearest kin. He
could understand intimately without feeling intimately. The

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 259

Portrait of the Artist's Mother, by Christen Kobke

great difference between Kobke and Eckersberg as portrait
painters is that while the latter, always alert but never vary-
ing in his capacity from day to day, went on with his "re-
search" into a character trait by trait, Kobke had moments
of higher intelligence in which the character in its entirety
flashed into his consciousness. In this respect he rather re-
sembled C. A. Jensen, and it is not surprising that in his
execution he followed Jensen rather than Eckersberg.
Kobke was the first Dane who succeeded in applying to
landscape the brilliant technique at the service of brilliant
insight, which he had learned from C. A. Jensen but had
developed to full independence. It was this that enabled
him to transfer his impressions of nature in all their fresh-
ness to the canvases which are the first, and perhaps to this
day the finest, of Danish open-air paintings. In his landscapes

260

SCANDINAVIAN ART

At Sortedamsso, by Christen Kobke

even more than in his portraits he confined himself within
narrow limits. So close did he circumscribe his limits that
he could hardly have drawn them closer and still have left
room for anything that could really be called landscape. He
sought his subjects in the restricted region where the coun-
try meets the city and surrounds scattered, outlying strag-
glers from the. battalions, of red roofs with the green circle
of its gardens and fields. No romantic excursion lured him
from these precincts, where he felt himself completely at
home. If more homely in his choice of subjects than Eckers-
berg, he was, on the other hand, more purely artistic in his
treatment of them. "From the study of shadow and the
theory of linear perspective a man advances to color and
air-tones" Eckersberg once said to his pupils. Kobke had
followed no such course; he was a born painter, especially
sensitive to the delicacy and beauty of color as affected by
light and atmosphere. He is the discoverer in Danish land-
scape painting of what are now called "values," the relative
intensity of color-tones; he is the earliest master in this de-
partment, and is still perhaps the greatest.

While Bendz and Kobke in Eckersberg's school devoted
themselves to the cultivation of color, it came more natur-
ally to Rorbye and Roed to develop drawing and form. Both

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 261

tried their hands at almost everything in their youth, as was
the custom of the school, but the complete lack of poetic
faculty eventually forced them into the field in which this
limitation least hampered them. Apart from this limitation,
their strongest common characteristics were, at first, an ex-
traordinary dexterity and absolute truthfulness. Roed main-
tained these to the end of his days, but Rorbye lost some-
thing of his thoroughness during his years of rambling in

Portrait of the Artist Lorentzen, by Martinus Rorbye

262

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of the Artist's Mother, by Jorgen Roed

the South and in the Orient, which naturally widened the
range of his subjects. Roed, as has been implied, remained
more consistent throughout his life, which was much longer
than Rorbye's, but he too painted his best pictures as a young
man, and proved himself incapable of growth. In all the
long course of his later work we find nothing with as much
feeling as his early portraits and nothing so attractive as
the naive charm, the appearance of actuality, and the faith-
fulness of rendering of his genre paintings and street scenes
from the period before his travels, or of the architectual
studies from his sojourn in Italy. The talent as a draughts-
man with which he was to the last so richly endowed made
him the most trustworthy portrait painter of the period.
His many large Biblical paintings, on the other hand, testify
rather to his taste and his fine intelligence than to a capacity
proportionate to his subjects.

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 263

Portrait of Fru Wanscher, by Constantin Hansen

All that he acquired in Italy was improved taste. One
might well say that of all Eckersberg's pupils he was the
least affected by Italy; even as an old man he persevered in
the traditions of the school without the slightest alteration.
Equally faithful to tradition were Holbech, Aumont, Bser-
entzen, and Hunasus, painters chiefly of portraits, who for
the most part stayed at home, and never succeeded in get-
ting to Rome. It was at Rome that the best of Eckersberg's
pupils were gathered in the later thirties, and it was there
that the break from the school occurred. How this breach
was made in each case may be learned from what follows.
Here we need only point out that the break, for some of
those concerned, was already prepared at home, owing to
the influence of the sculptor Freund, whose sense of style
and broader outlook on art offered a pleasing contrast to

264

SCANDINAVIAN ART

An Elocutionist on the Mole in Naples, by Constantin Hansen

Eckersberg's somewhat shortsighted naturalism ; he had an
especially strong effect on Kobke and his friend Constantin
Hansen.

Hansen was, besides, constitutionally disposed to a breach
with tradition at home. Though he shared the school's
strong sense of truth, he early acquired a sense of plastic
form, and also a strong feeling for the antique. He fol-
lowed the example of Eckersberg to the extent of devoting
himself faithfully to the study of architecture and landscape
during his stay in Italy. He departed from his master, how-
ever, by treating these subjects with more intelligence and
brilliance and a keener eye for color than Eckersberg ever
possessed. Soon his interest in the picturesque was forced
into the background by his increasing plastic sense and his
awakened feeling for style. He had been roused partly by
the antique paintings in Naples and partly by the beautiful
race of mankind which he saw about him. The result *was
that there appeared in his work a fresh and living style, not
a mere empty formalism. His chief work is the fresco dec-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 265

Fresco Decoration in the Vestibule of the University of Copenhagen,
by Constantin Hansen

oration of the vestibule of the University, which he under-
took after his return home in collaboration with Hilker.
Here his art rises far above the usual Danish level. With a
profound understanding both of the methods of ancient art
and of the philosophy of the Greek myths, he produced a
cycle of paintings which in the purity and power of their
style are scarcely equalled by any work of similar character
in modern times. The period, however, was not favorable
to a protracted sojourn among the gods of Greece. He was
caught in the prevalent trend of thought, and under the
influence of "Scandinavianism," of Hoyen and Grundtvig,
he devoted himself to subjects from Norse mythology, just
at the moment when his art was beginning to show its char-
acteristic simplicity and individuality, but unfortunately also
its deficiency in certain respects, notably in color and in imag-

266 SCANDINAVIAN ART

.^Sgir's Feast, by Constantin Hansen

ination. His portrait painting was affected by his other
activities, both to its advantage and to its disadvantage.
There is an almost complete lack of pictorial charm in his
portraits, which are uniformly brown, and wooden or
leathery; but what they lose in this respect they gain in plas-
tic and monumental effect. The great picture of the Con-
stituent Assembly. which Constantin Hansen, who aged
early, painted with what was left of his youthful strength, is
clearly, despite many obvious defects, the work of a painter
who understands better than most sculptors the requisites
of monumental art. In his later years he painted more
naturalistic, intimate pictures of his home, but even in these
the composition retains, by means of a slight deviation
from truth of line, something of the beauty of line and the
style which were what this artist had acquired in Italy.

There were still others to whom Italy taught devotion to
beauty, but it was to beauty in different and less significant
manifestations. To Petzholdt, a landscape painter of re-
markable talent, the Southern journey gave only a new and
more luminous palette, but as he died young it may be that
he had not had time to complete his development. To Kuch-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 267

Ier the journey supplied gay subjects from the cheerful life
of the Italian people, until he was converted to Catholicism
and, under the influence of the German Nazarenes, took to
painting thin, bloodless, religious pictures of ideal subjects.
He became a monk, entered a cloister, and was thus lost to
Danish art. A more lamentable loss was that of Adam
Muller, whose career came to an end in Italy when he was
barely thirty-three. He was the only one of Eckersberg's
pupils who might be called ethereal, and was perhaps pre-
disposed to artistic anaemia and impotence, for in his earliest
work his soulfulness already seemed rather morbidly languid
and listless. This, however, is vital and personal painting
compared with the dispirited, characterless work that he
produced in Italy after his lungs had become affected — -faint
echoes of Perugino and the earlier style of Raphael. Edde-
lien, like Adam Muller, lost his health in Italy, but he in-
creased his artistic powers by his study of the Renaissance,
which later stood him in good stead when he executed his
best work, the ceiling of Christian IV's chapel at Roskilde.
Even if residence in Italy had, as we have seen, different
effects on Eckersberg's different pupils, the general influence
on the tendencies of Danish art was the same. To a con-
siderable extent this influence is due to the contemporaneous
German attitude toward Italian art. Not only while Thor-
valdsen was living in Rome, but for several years after his
return home, Danish artists continued to profit by the repu-
tation that his great name had made for their country. They
associated themselves with the Germans, learned their lan-
guage, and eagerly took part in the gay artists' life of the
cafes. One of the leaders in this intercourse was Ernst
Meyer. He was born in Altona, and spoke Danish imper-
fectly; nor was the language he spoke with his brush gen-
uinely Danish. He had hardly any of the peculiarities of
Eckersberg's school; the mere fact that he abandoned his
own country for practically the whole of his life was an
incongruity in a school which had as its firmest foundation
a strong feeling for home. But the scenes from the life of
the Italian people which he sent back to the exhibitions in

268

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A Roman Boy Brought to the Convent, by Ernst Meyer

Copenhagen none the less roused great admiration, and
seemed to the younger Danish painters to set forth all the
charms of Italy. They had a seductive beauty, an alluring
playfulness, and a tinge of sentimentality, which were not
unwelcome at that period. It was from these pictures that
young men got their first conception of Italy, and when they
later went there to paint, they chose subjects similar to his,
and were predisposed by him in their interpretation. The
rest — technique — they learned from the pure Germans.
They learned from them to generalize nature so as to con-
form with the conventional conception of beauty. They
also learned from the Germans to spare themselves labor
by any convenient device. The Germans, for instance, taught
them to paint from costumes instead of from living models,
and to paint over a framework of outlines, drawn on the
canvas, with the aid of color formulae. Their naturalism

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 269

thus became afflicted with a half-heartedness from which
they found it very hard to recover. Of those already men-
tioned, Roed was the only one who really did recover. Of
those not previously discussed, there was one who never
recovered — Sonne — but he properly belongs in a later cate-
gory; and, strictly speaking, another — Marstrand — who is
separately considered in the next chapter.

IV
MARSTRAND

WHEN Marstrand was very young, he was expected
to become something of a Hogarth ; it soon appeared,
however, that his gift was not for satire, but for fun-
making. His humor sprang from a heart that was pure and
warm, and was therefore gentle and crystal clear. And as
his heart matured, there flowed from it, also, a deep current
of humanity which made the humor in his art delicate and
appealing, while at the same time his awakening sense of
beauty gave his work its outward dignity and grace.

Italy roused his sense of beauty. Long before he went to
Rome he had adopted the familiar conception of the paint-
ers' ideal land of sunshine, common to all representations
of Italian life by Northern artists. To their eyes, fascinated
by the foreign aspect of a life which in those days still re-
tained its national costumes and manners, it seemed like a
carnival the year round. The carnival spirit was always in
the air; they seized it, and it seized them. In their pic-
tures they have shown us, as it were, Italy in masquerade;
but of what was under the masquerade they rarely had very
much idea, so they had little to say of it. Like all the other
pictures of Italian life at that period, Marstrand's reproduce
only the surface. Yet his stand out because, far more than
other Northern paintings, they show a feeling for the plastic
grace and rythmic movement of the human form. Mar-
strand acquired this from first hand study of the beautiful
Italian race, and it so permeated him that it beautified and
softened his whole nature, so that one would never suspect
that the same artist had painted the coarse satires of his

270

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 271

272

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Young Italian Chasing the Flies from a Sleeping Girl, by Vilhelm
Marstrand

early youth and the sketches of The October Festival, The
Sisters' Bed and other playful and charming pictures from
his first visit to Rome.

In the following period, while he was living in Denmark
from 1 841 to 1845, Marstrand painted, among other things,
a series of remarkable portraits. It is, however, his illus-
trations of Holberg that make this period an epoch in his
artistic career. There can be no doubt of his congeniality
with Holberg. Although Holberg was as far from being
a painter as a poet well could be, Marstrand was more of a
poet than most painters, and his poetic strain turned easily
to laughter, which gave his attitude toward life something
in common with Holberg's. He is one of the few men in
modern times who have attained a real appreciation of com-
edy without feeling obliged to resort to caricature in the
presentation of comic character. Even Daumier, of whom

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 273

The Lying-in Chamber, by Vilhelm Marstrand. From Holberg's

Comedy

Marstrand often reminds us in his drawings, was more pre-
ponderantly a caricaturist. In Marstrand's illustrations of
Holberg the interpretation of character is softened by
humor, and the humor is elevated by the sense of beauty
which never forsakes him.

From 1845 t0 1848 he was off on another long journey,
through Holland to Paris and back once more to Rome.
None of his work has attained such popularity in his own
country as the genre paintings that date from this journey.
They by no means deserve their reputation. They show
insipid taste, cheap prettiness, often recalling the simpering,
coquettish painting of the German Riedel.

The sketches that date from the period of his second jour-
ney show no sign of any such deterioration. So slight, in
fact, was the effect of the deterioration that on a subsequent
trip to Italy he proved himself capable of more fresh and
vigorous feeling than ever before. From this last journey
one may date his complete emancipation, the final blossom-
ing of his genius.

274

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A Gondolier Giving His Hand to a Young Maiden,
by Vilhelm Marstrand

The new acquirements which he brought home with him
had not taken shape as completed works in his portfolio.
What he brought home was the courage with which he had
been inspired to raise his art toward what he called "the
higher regions." Venice, especially, seems to have fired
him. In the presence of the great art of Titian and, still
more, of Veronese, he had felt stirring within him the
power for greater artistic achievements than he had hitherto
attained. Something new appeared in his painting which
evidently came from an expansion of his whole character.
The first and most striking sign of it was in his increased
productivity. Already industrious, he became prolific: an
irresistible flood of paintings, sketches, and drawings flowed

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 275

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The Prodigal Son's Return, by Vilhelm Marstrand

from his hand and spread out over the land. The next sign
of the change was in his technique; the stroke of his brush
or his pen became freer and bolder, his form and his line
became more luxuriant, more sensuous, more exuberantly
healthy. And as his sense of beauty developed, his humor
developed also ; like a ripple of laughter it spread out and
swept over his paintings, in which he again and again turned
back to Holberg, or to the afflicted hero of Salamanca, who
is one of the most prominent figures in his great comic gal-
lery. At times his spirits would ebb; especially in his old
age he had many moments of gloom. The tide always
quickly rose again, however, and then he would show how
his heart could still swell with the very buoyancy of youth.
This is best illustrated, perhaps, in some of his pictures of
his home, of his wife, and his children.

The broadening of his character led quite naturally to
the broadening of his field. He now justly earned the title
of "historical painter," but not in the derogatory sense which

276

SCANDINAVIAN ART

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 277

the term has acquired in our day. It was life itself, not dead
history, that he painted, and painted in such a way that the
boundary between historical painting and genre painting is
often hard to define. In his religious pictures, too, one rec-
ognizes the genre painter; they owe their freshness to their
close relation to actual life. This is especially noticeable in
his greatest easel painting, The Great Supper (1869). Of
all his beautiful compositions this is the most beautiful, and
it is impossible to find a picture, although pictorially it is not
one of his best, which so fully displays his finest and richest
gifts. His great love for humanity in every walk of life pal-
pitates in this picture, in which he has assembled all types,
and his strong affection for the South is manifest in his
choice of setting — an Italian Renaissance hall, with a table
laden with Italian wine and Italian fruit, and guests who are
the actual people of the Italian streets and lanes. Over all
is a magical glamour, not produced by any illusion of beauti-
ful color — for he was great only as a draughtsman, not as a
colorist — but reflected from the luxuriance of his lavishly
splendid and generous spirit.

Far from being quenched by years, his spirit shone con-
stantly brighter and cast its light over new and wider regions.
With the exception of landscape, which played an entirely
insignificant part in his art, he painted almost everything.
Much of his work was mediocre, but there is no need to
dwell upon this fact. He concentrated his power on big
things instead of spreading it evenly over lesser things. In
his later years ample opportunity arose for the application
of his powers to the solution of new problems in the devel-
opment of monumental design. In his mural painting in
Christian IV's chapel in Roskilde Cathedral, his grand and
virile characterization of the King on board Trefoldigheden,
the composition, otherwise excellent, has one fault: there is
material in it for a dozen pictures. There is far greater
economy of figures, colors, and perspective in his picture of
the inauguration of Copenhagen University, and, judging by
the sketches, his representation of the Parable of the Tal-
ents, which he unfortunately did not complete, for the Na-

278

SCANDINAVIAN ART

tional Bank in Copenhagen, would probably have attained
still more grandeur of style. The high degree to which he
had developed himself as a painter in the grand style is best
exemplified in his last design, for a colossal altar-piece; here-
we find the directness and simplicity which are the highest
expression of artistic wisdom.

So far and so high had he won his way when he was
stopped by death. He was in the full course of his most
fertile development, for all his sixty-three years. If he had
lived ten years longer, Danish art would have been richer
by many masterpieces. There is little reason, however, to
brood over what he had not achieved, for as it was he had
achieved more than any other Danish painter. His produc-
tion was not limited to his hundreds of paintings and painted
sketches, but included also several thousand drawings, some-
times hastily and freely executed with a reed pen, his fav-
orite tool, sometimes carefully worked up with India ink

. V - t - '

Jeppe Getting Out of Bed, by Vilhelm Marstrand. From Holberg's

Comedy

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 279

or pencil. In order to form an adequate idea not merely
of his manner but of the whole volume of his production, it
is essential to take his drawings into consideration. For
only a small proportion of them are projects for paintings;
by far the greater number — in fact thousands — are inde-
pendent pictures, which he never executed in color.

Marstrand's capacity for making pictures by the thou-
sand is what raises him above the many talented painters of
the Danish school and distinguishes him as one of its few
real geniuses. The comparison, often applied but almost
always misused, of a painter's imagination with a kaleido-
scope, applies to Marstrand, and applies better to him than
to any other Danish artist. It was because of the truly
kaleidoscopic play of his imagination that it could not only
mould the material with which it was filled, but constantly
remould it into new pictures, always greater than the old,
till they attained what justly may be called the grand style.

V
THE EUROPEANS

MARSTRAND founded no school; he was not even a
good teacher. His great example, however, encour-
aged a few of the younger artists to free themselves
from the subjugation to nature imposed by Eckersberg, and
to try a flight on fancy's wings to times and regions more
remote. The example of the Germans in Rome had im-
pelled the Danish painters in the same direction. The result
was that about the year 1844, when Hoyen, the historian of
art, began his enthusiastic propaganda for a national Danish
art in the spirit of Eckersberg but with a rather wider hori-
zon, there rose in opposition a party whose tendency was
the direct reverse — to give to Danish art a more generally
European guise, with more liberal choice of subject and
freer form of expression. This party was heterogeneous.
It included in its ranks a few mere bunglers, but also some
men of considerable professional talent, who might have
become notable painters if they had only had a broader edu-
cation as men and sounder training as artists.

Fru Jerichau-Baumann, born in .Germany, was one of
those who had great ability but very little solidity. Even
such of her pictures as are entitled Denmark or A Wounded
Danish Warrior are altogether un-Danish in feeling as in
expression. Un-Danish, too, is her lack of moderation, es-
pecially noticeable in her glaring color effects. Most of her
hasty work might be described by the title which she gave to
one of her books— A Motley of Travel-pictures. "A mot-
ley of travel-pictures" might also be applied to the marines
of Anton Melbye, which just because of their facile "inter-

280

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 281

Marine, by Anton Melbye

national" manner brought him temporary international re-
nown. To a far higher degree than Eckersberg he had an
eye for the dramatic aspects of sea and sky, but he frequently
prompted sea and sky in their dramatic parts by introducing
effects that were more artistic than nature's own. One of
the great men of the past has said that art is inherent in
nature — "Who grasps the one has grasped the other."
Eckersberg held a similar belief as to the secret of art, and
he held quite as firmly to his faith when he searched the sea
horizon with his telescope; Melbye, on the other hand, be-
lieved that the secret was in the paint-box. Much the same
may be said of his brother, Vilhelm Melbye, and, for that
matter, also of Sorensen. The latter's pictures were usually
brighter and more smiling than Anton Melbye's, and pleased
the public because the light shone and gleamed out of them
with the most fascinating effect, which he regularly produced
by the lavish use of little white high lights. Another young
marine painter, Neumann, was freer from routine. He was
a better draughtsman, and made more notable use of his
palette, but he was dryer and less at home on the sea than
the others.

282 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Two portrait painters, one of whom was also a genre
painter, deviated from Eckersberg in their domain in much
the same way that these marine painters had in theirs. Mon-
ies was the more distinguished of the two. Judging by the
portraits which he painted in the late thirties, he was at that
time very promising. Later he degenerated as a portrait
painter, because he was content to cater to the unexacting
public demand, and as a genre painter he showed throughout
an unfortunate propensity to lapse into the unconscious
humor of the vulgar. In one instance, however, his prosaic
attitude gave way to a more sensitive perception — when he
painted his rather sentimental but deeply moving picture of
The Soldiers' Homecoming in the September Days. With
Gertner, on the contrary, dullness was chronic. Com-
pletely unmoved, he recorded all that he saw with his frigid
eye. At first his rendering had the sharpness and precision
of miniature painting; later it became coarse, and raw and
brutal in coloring.

The artists of the group we are discussing were gen-
erally liable to offences against color — for instance J. L.
Jensen, who painted flowers, and N. Simonsen, who painted
Arabs, Jews, Swedes, Italians, Spaniards, pirate and wreck-
scenes, Bavarian landscapes, views of the desert, and endless
other things, none of which he thoroughly understood. An-
other, Chr. Holm," who lived in Munich and was both a
battle painter and an animal painter, was almost as versa-
tile and no less superficial. The same might be said of Kjaer-
schou as a landscape painter and of Schleisner as a figure
painter; they are at the bottom of the scale. Lehmann,
although a poor portrait painter, showed in a few pictures
of Copenhagen society an engaging, half French charm of
his own. N. F. Rohde, whose specialty was winter land-
scape, had a pleasant but rather tedious touch. Brendstrup,
whose wandering life seems to have kept him from form-
ing permanent and intimate associations with any place on
earth, had a sense of decorative effect rather unusual in
earlier Danish art. Another rather older landscape painter,
Buntzen, in his youth led his class as a draughtsman, learn-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 283

ing easily and quickly; but later his facility took the fatal
form of learning nature by heart instead of continuing to
study it. The most gifted, unquestionably, was Gurlitt,
whose life and art, however, belong rather to Germany than
to Denmark, which he left for good in 1843.

Such was the motley, ill-assorted company ! All of them
were more or less subject to European influences, but it is
worth noticing that they were not influenced by the great pro-
gressive geniuses of the important countries, but by the com-
monplace, average art. They painted to produce pictures
for the public, not to produce art. Hoyen was no refined
gourmet in matters of art; he was rather too fond of art
cooked and served for home consumption. Still, he has the
honor of being for many years the only critic who refused to
accept this group of painters. For all his onesidedness, his
general opinion was correct. In a few individual cases his
opinion was incorrect, and in one case was utterly wrong.
He did not properly understand (and perhaps did not prop-
erly know) the work of the landscape painter Kjeldrup, in
whose pictures, despite their false coloring and mannerisms
of execution, one occasionally finds really effective and intel-
ligent painting. What seems more inexcusable from our
modern point of view, he saw nothing whatever in Frolich.

This painter was equipped by nature with qualities not
common among Danes. For one thing, he had an unmate-
rial mind, which took naturally to fancy. His fancy was no
uncertain wandering, but a lofty flight; there was no need to
fear that it might come to some bad end. His was a winged
horse which found its way surely across the skies to the
legendary world whence came the shapes that filled his imag-
ination. It is easy to understand that a man with such a
fortunate endowment would believe himself able to dispense
with schools. Frolich had little to do with them in his youth,
and later, nothing whatever. For a short time he was a
pupil of Eckersberg, but no trace of Eckersberg is to be
found in his work. He was no more than twenty when he
left Denmark and settled in Germany, first at Munich and
later at Dresden. He found kinship to his romantic dispo-

284

SCANDINAVIAN ART

sin

Will Edna Give Me a Kiss? by Lorens
Frolich. Illustration for a children's book

sition and his enthu-
siasm for the legend-
ary past among many
of the Germans of
that period, espe-
cially in Schnorr von
Carolsfeld and Lud-
wig Richter, both
of whom influenced
him strongly. From
Richter he adopted
the first fprm of his
pictures for children,
from Schnorr the first
form of his saga-pictures.

It was in Germany that he learned his drawing; his paint-
ing he learned in France. As a painter, however, he never
developed an independent palette, and he did not care
much whether he did or not. Line appealed to his im-
agination far more than color. The weavings of his fancy
were strange ornamental patterns of plant and animal life
inextricably intertwined with human figures in some of the
most luxuriant arabesques that the world has ever seen. At
the time when Frolich executed for a French publisher the
several thousand pictures for children which were to be the
forerunners of his great series of world famous children's
books, he was still able to compose without conventionalizing.
It is the naturalness, not the art, that one admires in these
books. His general talent for composition, however, soon
developed into a special talent for decoration. A single ceil-
ing-painting shows that he could have mastered the problems
of monumental decoration, but for the time being he did no
more work of this kind. The best of his unequalled decor-
ative drawing went into illustrations for books, or sets of
prints, especially etchings. This work was not merely dec-
orative. Though Frolich sometimes went to the extreme of
making the text accompanying his pictures into a sort of
ornamental border round the drawing, skillfully printing the

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 285

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286 SCANDINAVIAN ART

letters with his own hands, he was far more than a mere
embroiderer of pages. He had a sincere and mystically deep
feeling for the world of myth and saga whose inhabitants
his inspired pen or etcher's needle so memorably portrayed.
In some of the greatest achievements, in a few of his most
inspired pictures of the Northern legendary period, it cer-
tainly is hard to find any specifically Danish quality in his
splendid imagination. At least it is not to be measured
by any Danish standard. The fault may be rather with Den-
mark than with Frolich, and, if this is true, his place is not
outside but beyond the evolution of Danish art.

While his star climbed slowly and did not reach its zenith
till his old age, Carl Bloch's star turned pale with surprising
rapidity after shining for a generation with a lustre hitherto
unseen in the skies of Denmark, usually so devoid of marvels.
Early in his career Bloch was designated the heir of Mar-
strand, and more than that, a painter of European magni-
tude. In his earliest paintings from the life of the common
people his talent for dramatic narration became evident, and
in those that followed his comic vein appeared. Then the
very first pictures that he sent home from Italy proved that
his pictorial power was unusual. A series of historical and
biblical paintings of large dimensions further indicated a
steady rise toward" the highest standards of art, especially in
his Prometheus, painted in 1865, and regarded as a great
achievement, a sign that the nation was reviving after its
defeat of the preceding year. Then came light-hearted
genre paintings from Italy, and the first of the series of
paintings for Frederiksborg, a number of portraits, a few
studies of Copenhagen types, and in the midst of all these
the Danish historical pictures, among which the painting of
Christian II in Sonderborg Prison did more than any other
of his works to make his name loved and honored.

Of course an artist must have marked ability to raise
such a stir in the course of a dozen years. He did have the
faculty, among others, of simple, unified composition, which
makes a picture remain indelible in the memory. Besides,
Bloch's coloring was stronger and more brilliant than any-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 287

Christian II in Sonderborg Prison, by Carl Bloch

thing seen before. This was no trifling patchwork of
studies from nature, but light and shade applied with an
excellent eye for effect. This was the sure, purposeful work
of an unusually clear and intelligent mind, with a masterful
grasp of its problems. Lastly, here was a fresh spring of
human emotion; such moving interpretation of suffering
plainly rose from the deepest human sympathy.

The phenomenon, in fact, was dazzling. It was danger-

288 SCANDINAVIAN ART

ous, however, to be a shining marvel, year in and year out,
before the eyes of a public as easily dazzled as the Danes of
that day. From the use of strong measures the step was
short to the misuse of them. Bloch took the false step. He
was given to strong, crude, almost aniline colors, too violent
contrasts between light and shade, and excessive use of bril-
liant lighting, and although he loved the world's greatest
color symphonist and tried his hand sometimes at Rem-
brandt's effects, especially in etchings, his results were cheap
and coarse. His pictures too often shout in one's ear things
better left to be guessed, to be inferred by the intelligence or
the imagination. It was his misfortune that he so early made
the whole public his public. He was forced to speak loud
that all the deaf might hear; hence his gross and violent-
means.

Olrik had better taste. He was an eclectic who learned a
certain academically external and impersonal form, first
from Couture in Paris and later from the masters of the
Italian High Renaissance. He became the amiable and
correct portrait painter of good society, and finally, by mus-
tering all his diligence, energy, and refinement, he achieved
an equally correct altar-piece, setting forth the Sermon on
the Mount, for the Matthasuskirke in Copenhagen. He also
devoted his tastcand his knowledge of style to the creation
of lesser decorative works of many varieties.

Of very different stamp was a young artist who attracted
a certain amount of attention in the late thirties and prob-
ably would have aroused a good deal more if Bloch had not
at that moment cast even the best into the shade. To be
sure, L. A. Schou showed nothing more than promise, but
it was a greater and more reckless promise than is usually
offered by the artistic youth of Denmark. Eager, nervous,
passionate, he was unlike the phlegmatic Dane. His very
first portraits, a series of young women with pride of race
in their bearing and southern sweetness in their expression,
were un-Danish. A worldly, gallant point of view, imposed
by a romantic worship of women, makes them distinct in
style and manner from all other Danish portraits. Con-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 289

Portrait of the Artist's Grandfather, by L. A. Schou

temporaneous work of another kind marks Schou as a for-
mer pupil of Marstrand, but the differences between him
and his master are so great as to be noticeable. There was
something of the falcon in the younger man; even before his
fancy took flight his eye for the actual was as piercing as the
falcon's.

In 1864 he went to Rome, and in that year and several
following he gave brilliant proof of his great qualities in a
series of big genre paintings, in which, however, he did not
succeed in getting very far away from his studies of his

290

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Scene from Ragnarok. Sketch by L. A. Schou

models. He attained his greatest heights in the preliminary
sketches that he made for a great cycle of scenes from the
Ragnarok myth. It is natural that in the hands of a "Eu-
ropean" like Schou the figures of Norse mythology should
have taken a form which was neither Greek, as it was with
Freund, nor Northern, as it was with Constantin Hansen.
Rather, there is something French about these drawings,
which occasionally recall Dore. Yet they are more cleverly
drawn than most of Dore's work, and almost the only thing
Schou learned from him was to abandon himself to an imag-
inary world of swirling fire, like Dore's own. It was not
anything distinctively Scandinavian in Norse mythology that
attracted him; it was of no more value to him than a great
many subjects from Shakespeare; he painted Orestes pursued
by the Furies in exactly the same spirit that he drew the
scenes from Ragnarok. All these were merely outlets for
his imagination, which poured through his consciousness,
agonizing and chaotic, and held him like a nightmare until
he had given it definite expression. Here sits Hodr in a

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 291

lonely corner of the earth and waits for Ragnarok. Here
Hermodr gropes his way forward toward Hel's throne in the
underworld. Here Thor and his servant bind Loki with
Narfi's entrails, while Skadi pins the venomous snake to
the rock above his head, and Sigyn catches the poison. Here
Hel with her dismal, silent train passes on a moonless winter
night through the woods to Ragnarok, startling an owl and
huge fantastic bats. Here Thor buries his hammer in the
head of the Midgard Serpent, which spouts venom in his
face. Here, finally, mountains reel, the sun darkens, the
heavens catch fire as the battles rage on the ultimate day.
All this and more Schou has set forth with a daring and a
demoniacal passion unique in the quiet art of Denmark.

There are times, however, when it seems that death favors
the moderate in art as in life. It overtook this prodigal in
time to prevent further extravagances of fancy; it likewise
overtook in early youth two others who might have helped
to change the mood of Danish art from the small to the
great. One was Harald Jerichau, who died when he was
only twenty-five. Son of the German-born and German-
trained Fru Jerichau-Baumann, taught by a French painter
in Rome, living for a time in Turkey, for a time in Greece,
for a time in Italy, he was to an unfortunate degree lacking
in associations with his native land. There is something
thin, superficial, and suggestive of stage scenery about his
works, especially the best known of all, the big picture of the
plain of Sardis, which makes them very unsatisfactory. Yet
in the best of his landscapes and marines there is something
of the touch of a really great painter, and of that Danish art
has had far too little. The second, or rather the third, of
the artists who died prematurely was Jorgen Roed's son,
Holger Roed. It is of course impossible to say whether he
would ever have been able to work up into paintings all the
lovely ideas which he had time only to indicate in drawings
and sketches. Possibly he might never have succeeded in
modifying the form of the Renaissance masters — especially
Rubens — whom he so admired, into a style answering to the
needs of his own more unassuming character. But the mere

292 SCANDINAVIAN ART

fact that a young artist who had such beautiful thoughts and
such bold enthusiasms and so much sense of style and gran-
deur had actually obtained a hearing might well have been
of high significance in the subsequent development of Dan-
ish art. For despite the efforts of the Europeans, Danish
art was becoming more and more homely, just as the spirit
of the country tended toward homely simplicity, a process
which was considerably hastened by the national revival,
under the powerful leadership of Hoyen, in the period be-
tween 1848 and 1864. How the country was finally won
over to the cause of art we shall see in the next chapter.

VI
THE NATIONALISTS

IN the years immediately preceding 1848 the impulse
toward national unity, which, so to speak, constituted the
very existence of Denmark in the forties, was eager to
grasp anything that might be employed as a spiritual weapon.
Even the artists were mobilized and placed under orders.
They received their orders on the March day in 1844 when
Hoyen made his famous address "On the requirements for
the development of a Scandinavian National Art."

"The man of the North," he said, "must first be under-
stood in all his peculiarities; our senses must be sharpened
for what is big and homelike in our natural surroundings,
before we can hope to create a popular, historical art. . . .
Nor is every trace of the olden times wiped out, even now
after the lapse of centuries The simplicity and bold-
ness, the patriarchal life, with which we still meet in the

fishing villages and the towns throughout Denmark

still throw an illuminating gleam on those bygone days. Yet
— these figures are vulgar, their joviality is heavy, their
sorrow devoid of dignity or grace. . . . but to him who
looks beneath, whose sympathy does not merely skim the
surface, to the real artist, there is here a rich vein of pure
precious metal. Lay bare that treasure and it will shine in
the eyes of all."

It seems that H. I. Hammer was one of the first to
respond to Hoyen's appeal. He had a responsive and poetic
disposition, and there was much that he wanted to say, but
soon after his first appearance he was rendered rather super-
fluous by Sonne, who had similar aims and found it more

293

294

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Sick Sleeping on Helen's Grave, by Jorgen Sonne

easy to express them. Sonne had gone on his travels at an
early age and had completed a stage of his development in
Munich, and therefore was less trained in the use of his eyes
than Eckersberg's.other pupils. On the other hand, he was
more of a dreamer and a poet. When he returned, he seized
the opportunity of realizing his youthful ambition to become
a battle painter. He took part in both our wars, and painted
battle scenes from them that were far more real than his
earlier more purely abstract productions in the same field,
although his treatment of the horrors of war was evidently
softened by the idyllic background of the battles, the placid
Danish countryside. His first contact with the life of the
Danish people had thus been made. Already romantically
inclined, he approached the life of the people from the
romantic side of its natural surroundings. He gave vent to
his love of mankind and his feeling for nature, not in a fore-
ground and a background respectively, but in a single all-
pervasive mood. He was most strongly attracted by the

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 295

bright Northern summer nights with their fluid mists and
their melting sadness. It was under the sky of a midsummer
night that he presented The Sick Sleeping on Helen's Grave.
It was under the same sky that he painted The Minister
Going to Visit a Sick Person Beyond the Hill.

The sureness of his coloring, so long as he was evaluating
the veiled tones of the summer night, gave way to uncer-
tainty when he tried to harmonize the colors of bright sun-
light. He had no natural gift for form. Perhaps it is just
because the painter makes so little impression in his pictures
that the poet is so conspicuous in them. In many of his
paintings of the life of the people there is something of the
primitive folk-poetry, something of the deep simplicity and
universality which springs from the complete ingenuousness
of naive hearts, and finds utterance in a form that is monu-
mental though entirely artless. It is this same naive monu-
mental form that lends a special charm to Sonne's splendid
sgraffiato pictures on the exterior of the Thorvaldsen
Museum.

Danish art had acquired its first great dreamer and in-
terpreter of moods; at just the same time it found in Dals-
gaard its first great psychologist and dramatic interpreter,
who was a real painter besides. In contrast to Sonne, who
lived the best moments of his artistic existence under the
open sky, Dalsgaard preferred to seek his inspiration in-
doors among the human beings whom it was his life's work
to portray. He belonged to a period when national cos-
tumes were still worn and the capital had not yet despoiled
the rural homesteads of their characteristic old-fashioned
furnishings. He carefully collected studies of all these
things, but not for the purpose of displaying them in his pic-
tures as curiosities. He certainly did not fail to realize that
these things had a picturesque value which made them worth
his attention, but from the unobtrusive way they are intro-
duced into his interiors it is plain they did not distract his
attention from what was intrinsically human. The narra-
tion is consequently very forcible in Dalsgaard's pictures;
often it fairly leaps out of the foreground at the beholder.

296

SCANDINAVIAN ART

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 297

For his time, he was almost too recklessly truthful. The
sorrow in his pictures was in earnest, in bitter earnest, and
nothing of the kind had been seen before in Danish Art, least
of all among surroundings where people were accustomed to
look for nothing except rustic idylls. He was himself of
peasant birth and knew that life is not sheer sunshine in the
country any more than it is in town. He left still life to
Vermehren, he left Sunday scenes to Exner; what he pre-
ferred to describe himself was the stormy days which go
straight to the bone and marrow of the strong and make
the feeble droop and weaken. His penetrating eye — the eye
of a psychologist, almost of a pathologist — probed to the
bottom of profound human conflicts; it searched the souls
of the unfortunates whom necessity drives from their homes
as in Dispossessed, or for whom their own faith and trustful-
ness have set snares as in The Mormons. In default of other
conflicts, there was always the conflict of love, and his pic-
tures have given us poignant glimpses both of the love of
parents and children and of the love of husband and wife.
In most of these pictures love leads to sorrow and weeping,
whether it is the hard-heartedness of parents or cruel death
that separates the lovers. But tears do not flow in Dals-
gaard's art, they only sparkle in the mourner's eyes. Sor-
row does not tear the figures asunder; it devours them in-
wardly. Only rarely do we see one of the young women
break down in the agony of love, and then there is always
the mother's hand tenderly to stroke her hair, or the
mother's shoulder on which she can lay her head. In his
later love scenes, Dalsgaard struck gentler, milder, more
harmonious chords. In these he pictured the young girl's
longing and anticipation, waiting for her bridegroom, or
reading a letter from her lover, or writing his name on a
window pane; in the mood of these women, with their over-
flowing hearts and their hearts' secrets, there is often a sweet-
ness like that of the lyrics of Christian Winther. Yet these
do not compare artistically with the more bitter work of his
maturer years.

Long settled and fast rooted in his post in a small pro-

298

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A Visit to the Village Carpenter, by Christen Dalsgaard

vincial town in central Sjaelland, far from the Jutland re-
gions where he had* collected his studies, he squandered the
capital he had amassed till it shrank to almost nothing.
Then, although his great power had been the heightening of
dramatic illusion by deceptive rendering of material objects,
he finally produced a series of religious pictures in which he
so toned down the dramatic effects as to spiritualize them to
the point of absolute unreality. These are mentioned here
for the sake of completeness, not with the intention of dis-
paraging Dalsgaard. The work of his maturity gives him
a sure place in the first rank of Danish painters.

There is some question, on the contrary, as to whether
Exner will eventually hold the place at Dalsgaard's side
which has hitherto been assigned to him. To a certain ex-
tent he won men's hearts as no other Danish artist ever had,

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 299

but he succeeded by smiling his way into them, not by grip-
ping them with any strong passion. Whereas life — harsh as
it is in the pinched circumstances of the country districts —
burned itself into Dalsgaard's consciousness, on Exner's its
traces are faint, in so far as they are perceptible at all. It
is only life in its gentlest aspect, child-life, which we can
grant that he presented truthfully in his pictures. He was
the first Danish painter to show a perception of the amus-
ingly naive side of children, but his achievement went no
further than that.

He never had anything like the understanding of the peas-
ants of Amager and the fishermen of Fano that Dalsgaard
had of the people of Sailing Land. He remained a holiday
visitor from Copenhagen, to whom country life seemed an
ideal Sunday existence. One must realize his amiability, and
also his habit of looking from his own very proper and pure
point of view at everything which was not externally so
clean that it glistened, in order to understand why every-

The Little Convalescent, by Julius Exner

300 SCANDINAVIAN ART

thing that comes from his hand seems so extraordinary. It
is not enough to say that the characters in Exner's painting
are scrubbed clean, like the floors in his interiors; they are
scoured and polished like the coppers and brasses on the
walls. His art positively shines with unsullied youth and
wholesomeness.

There was different stuff in Vermehren, and far more
genuine. He was a man who could not get a close enough
hold on life, and who consequently very soon gave up trying
to grasp its movement or its fleeting moods, and made him-
self the painter of what one might call human still life. We
need not discuss whether or not Vermehren, who later be-
came the fashionable Copenhagen portrait painter, really
felt himself bound by the heartstrings to the life of the com-
mon people, which he chose to paint in his youth; he cer-
tainly was not at home among the people in the way that
Dalsgaard was. But the subjects that he selected from
every-day life appealed to his eye as Dalsgaard's subjects
appealed to his heart, and he went just as deeply into his
subjects by means of observation as Dalsgaard did by means
of emotion. He stands far below Dalsgaard in his human
limitations, but he stands above him in his complete ab-
sorption in his work.

In this last respect he established a record. A sporting
term may seem out of place in this connection, but it fits.
He went in for observation as if it had been a sport, and
found the sportsman's satisfaction in developing his special
aptitude into a hobby. Neither in his Copenhagen interiors
with one or two figures, however, nor in the long series of
portraits that from about 1870 onward became his most
useful form of production, did he succeed in maintaining the
intensity which gives his youthful paintings of the life of the
people, especially The Shepherd on the Heath, their place
among the profoundest studies of primitive Danish char-
acter which our art has ever undertaken.

Such a spirit of enterprise, unfortunately, was not destined
to endure among the older figure painters, nor could it pro-
pagate itself among the younger. It was lacking in Siegum-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 301

The Shepherd on the Heath, by Frederik Vermehren

feldt, who took more delight in telling a jolly story, or a sad
one, from the life of the people, with the help of several
figures, than in earnest inquiry into individual character. It
was also lacking in A. Dorph, whose popular pictures make
less attempt to render an impression of actual nature than to
set forth a rather thin-blooded idealist's ready profession of
ideals. It was only in Hans Smidth, a rather younger artist,
that the men who painted the life of our people realistically
in the fifties found a continuator in the sixties. Right down
to our own day he preserved and constantly developed a
sense of character that in many ways compared with Dals-
gaard's, and a sense of locality which recalled Blicher and
lent unusual authenticity to his presentation of the aspect of
nature in Jutland and of the temper of Jutland.

As has been suggested, here and there in these first illus-
trations of Danish folk-life we recognize a tone that accords
with the tones of contemporaneous Danish poetry. This
does not mean, however, that the painting of Danish life
in that period was an art which had many points of contact

302 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Sheep at a Barrow, by Johan Thomas Lundbye

with poetry and music. On the contrary, it was an art, like
that of the old Dutch masters, which found its chief expres-
sion in realistic painting. When it is said in reference to this
period that "the poets sang a soul of their own into nature,
and the painters could not remain deaf to their song," it
applies very poorly to the figure painters, and really fits only
one of the landscape painters, the one of whom the remark
was originally made, Lundbye. His extremely impression-
able senses, early aroused by the national poetry, were in-
fused with an ardent affection for his native land till they
vibrated at the slightest touch of his beloved Danish nature.
The sounding-board of his nerves might be described as
humming rather than as singing, but in any case the humming
never was silenced. It flooded his being with its rhythms
and made even his technique rhythmical. His art is there-
fore poetry, even when it attempts no more than prose. It
is not only among the prehistoric barrows which he loved
so dearly that his mood is poetically exalted; the exaltation
accompanied him wheresoever he fared in Denmark.

He is a greater master of line than of color. The poetic
quality is far more manifest in his drawing than in his pal-
ette. What he loved best was Sjaelland, with its long, gentle

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 303

Milking-place at Vognserup, by johan Thomas Lundbye

ranges of hills or its wide sweeps to the far horizon. His
heart, overflowing with goodness, made him the friend of
animals, of flowers, and of children, and inclined him much
more toward placid than toward wild scenery. The tinge of
sadness in his disposition is distinguishable in his landscapes,
but their tone is very rarely melancholy.

Like so many of the others whose work is treated in this
chapter, he travelled in Italy and other countries, but on him,
as on most of them, the effect was insignificant. By this time
people went abroad when they were grown men in order to
increase their knowledge, not, as they had at an earlier date,
to lay or to relay the foundations of their development.
More quickly than most, Lundbye found his taste for roving
giving way to homesickness. There is a delightful drawing
from the end of his journey, in which he has anticipated the
joy of returning to his friends the animals at home. He has
represented himself here, as he so often did before and after-
wards, in the guise of one of the good "Nisser" or "little
folk" of whose potterings about threshing floor and stable
and pasture his own pursuits reminded him. Perhaps he

304 SCANDINAVIAN ART

found rather too much solace in this resemblance, and was
too prone to pottering about nature and art; perhaps he
resembled his beloved fairy-folk in this, also : that the re-
sults he attained did not always correspond in their scope
and significance to the amount of work he put into them. Yet
why should we reproach him, for even the trifles that he has
left us are rich in most precious Danish poetry, which hardly
anywhere else in Danish painting has such easy, living flow
as in the long, fine penstrokes of Lundbye's multifarious
drawings.

A Lane at Vognserup, by Peter Christian Skovgaard

Though the process was not quite so effortless, one might
say of Lundbye that he passively allowed nature to pluck the
strings of his poetic soul. Skovgaard, on the contrary,
actively penetrated into nature, searching it with his eyes
in every direction. He preferred to look for a spot, whereas
Lundbye preferred to scan a region. Consistently with this,
he often missed the things in nature which do not strike the
eye, the things which are in the air and appeal to other
senses than the visual. Technically speaking, too, his com-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 305

Scene in the Vejle Valley, by Peter Christian Skovgaard

mand of the air was weaker than his command of the earth.
Atmospheric phenomena interested him very little, and
when he did attempt to treat them, he did not master them.
But everything that pertains to the earth, that grows on the
earth, he knew inside and out, so far as form is concerned, as
no other Danish artist has known them.

Scene from Ulvedalene in Dyrehaven, by Peter Christian Skovgaard

306

SCANDINAVIAN ART

In the great majority of his pictures he showed nature at
the moment when the sap was rising highest, at the utmost
expansion of the leaves. In most of his pictures, too, he
selected the most beautiful and fully-grown specimens — for
example, he loved to paint the dome-shaped beeches of
Dyrehaven in Copenhagen. Hence the trees in his pictures,
if one observes them singly, often give the impression of
mere repetitions of the same model. Some of his pictures
of forests look more like pictures of parks. On the whole,
however, this propensity was advantageous to his art, as it
infused into his naturalism a little idealism, without which
his work would have been devoid of temperament. For his
passion for vegetation in its greatest abundance and vigor
was everywhere bursting out through the surface of his art.
This is most strikingly evident in his studies, which are
usually better, artistically, than his finished paintings. Es-
pecially in his larger paintings there was an obvious dis-
parity between the great scale of the picture and the exces-

At the Tea-table in Vejby, by Peter Christian Skovgaard

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 307

sively detailed brushwork with which he tried to get his
effects. The versatility of his talent (which also showed
itself in the fact that he was incidentally a distinguished
portrait painter and a no less distinguished genre painter,
and was invariably successful at decorative drawing) made
it difficult for him to restrict himself to any one aspect of
a motif while he was completing a landscape. None the
less, even in the dryest of his large pictures, if one stands
off at a distance one recognizes his big, generous disposition
in the boldness and exuberance of the outlines, even though
at closer range they disintegrate into an arid rendering of
detail. In a few of his later pictures, evidently under the
influence of Claude or Swanewelt, he showed an inclination
to give free rein to his growing sense for the vast and sol-
emn phases of nature. No one worthier than he has yet
come forward to carry on the grand style which he thus
introduced into Danish landscape painting.

Even though Kyhn, in some of his later pictures, strength-
ened his landscape by supporting it on a frame of big lines,
he did not usually show any discrimination in his choice
of motifs. The superlative abundance of his painting is due
to the very fact that almost any kind of fragment of nature
was to him a satisfactory motif. His love and his knowl-
edge of nature were not limited by the boundaries of Den-
mark. With his rare faculty for entering into the spirit
of foreign scenery, he painted pleasing landscapes of Italy
and France, of Norway and Sweden. Had his hand been
equal to his other attributes, he might have made a Euro-
pean reputation. Unfortunately, he had a real contempt
for mere technique, and consequently, although he was a
great artist, he never became a great painter. He was
constantly painting in little dabs where what he needed
was bold strokes, or else using bold strokes where he should
have let his brush linger in order to obtain definition.

Of all the things that he loved in the course of his long
life, in his later years he loved Jutland the best. In those
last years summer was the season he preferred to paint,
which was quite natural, as he followed in his old age the

308

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Hillside Near Horsens, by Vilhelm Kyhn

example of his juniors and completed his pictures outdoors,
but on account of his health he could not stay out during
the inclement seasons. In his youth he had not submitted
to any such restrictions. In those days he had been out
at all seasons and all times of day in pursuit of the fleeting
moods of nature. One can practically estimate Lundbye's

Summer Evening, by Vilhelm Kyhn

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 309

significance from a single painting, and the same is true of
Skovgaard; it is otherwise with Kyhn. In any single paint-
ing of his it is easier to pick out his faults than to appre-
ciate his qualities. One cannot appraise his greatness with-
out considering his work as a whole. He had none of
Skovgaard's plastic sense of form, none of Lundbye's
rhythmic sense of line; further, his talent as an artist was
no more restricted or specialized than his field as a land-
scape painter. What he had was a strikingly fresh,
elemental, unsophisticated feeling for nature, of too wide
a span to be contained in any one picture. It did, of course,
have limits — it was more congenial to quiet, gentle nature
than to wild and rugged. Still, it was much more inclu-
sive than the feeling for nature in any other Danish land-
scape painter, and it was also deeper. It was not, like
Lundbye's, pitched in the key of the songs and poems about
Denmark and modulated to their rhythm; nor was it, like
Skovgaard's, formally cultivated by other means. It was
primitive and deeply original, like no one's else.

The fourth of the painters who brought landscape to its
flowering in Denmark was Rump. He, too, was a painter
of moods, but he had no such range of moods as Kyhn.
He was more of a virtuoso, if the word may be used rela-
tively, considering the undeveloped technique of Danish art
in those days. He had a marked color sense, in contrast
to Lundbye's sense of line and Skovgaard's sense of form.
Of the seasons, which he treated in a well-known series of
paintings, it was spring which most strongly appealed to
his avid enjoyment of nature. He painted a few very
pretty but not very wintry winter scenes; he painted a few
autumn scenes, likewise very pretty, but rather subdued;
he had greater success with summer sunshine on woods in
full leaf. What he best understood was the budding forest
in springtime, when nature is most lavish with balm for
men's souls and bodies. In his vernal scenes one inhales
the bright day over which the woods have as yet cast no
shadow, the delicious newborn air, laden with fragrance from
the earth under the trees. One revels in these delightful

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SCANDINAVIAN ART

Spring Landscape, by Gotfred Rump

sensations, because he, himself, has reveled in them, with
senses continually so trained and sharpened that they had
become more sensitive than most people's to such impres-
sions. It is the genuineness of the coloring which produces
the illusion in Rump's pictures of this type. There is some-
thing of the painter-virtuoso and something of the sym-
phony composer about his work, which in a certain
way anticipates a much later development of Danish land-
scape.

Associated with these four great discoverers and restor-
ers of Danish landscape there was a little group of artists,
of whom some had the misfortune to be born a few years
too late to take their place in the first rank of the pioneers,
while others had the even more deplorable fate of dying
many years too soon, long before they could make them-
selves felt. There was the animal painter Dalgas, who was
most closely related to Skovgaard and Lundbye, and like
the latter gave his life in the war; he was a man of unusual
talent, and if he had lived longer would certainly have
freed his individuality from the influence of his colleagues
as he had fortunately already emancipated himself from his

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 311

A Shepherdess, by Carlo Dalgas

previous subservience to the Dutch tradition. There was
Dreyer, whose landscape sketches rank very high; his fresh
studies often disclose a wonderful feeling for the moods of
nature, and his full coloring recalls Rousseau, Francais, or
Daubigny. There was Frederik Krafft, little known, but the
painter of a few pictures which testify to original and inde-
pendent observation of light effects in the open, unusual for
those days. There was the landscape and animal painter,
I. D. Frisch, also a fresh observer, and a true artist. One
might mention, also, the marine painter, Emanuel Larsen,
among other reasons because he was one of those who died
too young. Of those born a few years too late, Kolle prac-
tically repeated the discoveries of the pioneers, and there-
fore did not take the place in the first rank for which his
attainments would have qualified him if he had been born a
little earlier.

Vilhelm Pedersen occupies a unique position on account
of his excellent illustrations of H. C. Andersen's fairy-tales.
Any other contributions, outside of landscape painting or the
painting of every-day life, in the period, were of little signifi-
cance. The life of the citizens of the capital was humorously

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SCANDINAVIAN ART

portrayed by the talented dilettante, Fritz Jiirgensen. Hein-
rich Hansen devoted himself to architectural painting; he
was a fairly good painter, but rigid in his perspective, a vir-
tuoso in the use of the ruler. Animal painting found few
votaries. The best flower painter was Ottesen, whose Dutch
manner bespeaks more industry than genius ; he was entirely
lacking in appreciation of the decorative quality of flowers.
Nor were the professional portrait painters any better.
They rarely produced anything more than a "good like-
ness."

After the abundant years that Danish art had enjoyed
in the fifties and the early sixties, there followed lean years
from about 1870. Those who had won the great victories
rested on their laurels, if they were not already resting in
the grave. The Charlottenborg exhibitions were filled by
a crowd of epigoni, none of whom was capable of carrying
the development any further. The man who most nearly
approached Kyhn was Foss, who knew the Jutland coun-
try intimately, and was a conscientious pupil, but never a

At the River in Odense, by Dankvart Dreyer

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 313

At the Mouth of the River, by Janus La Cour

master. Thorenfeld, also a painter of Jutland, had more
personality, but he never got over the stammering and stut-
tering stage in his expression. Of Skovgaard's succes-
sors, Aagaard may be mentioned; he had a certain knack
of choosing effective subjects, but his execution was en-
feebled by his diluted coloring and his finicky brushwork.
A finer artist than Aagaard, and more of a nature-lover,
was Hans Friis, but his enthusiasm, unfortunately, always
evaporated long before he could bring his picture labori-
ously to completion. Then there was Fritz, who had a
keen eye for the majestic beauty of the beechwoods, but
who handled his colors so unskilfully that they looked like
a snarl of woolen yarn. Far above these men stood Skov-
gaard's pupil, La Cour, who had a great talent for form
and a fastidious taste, choosing subjects that lent themselves
to strong lines and strong feelings; but he had a rather cold
and reserved temperament, passionless or at least dreading
to let himself go, which hampered him in his frequent at-
tempts to show the violent, spontaneous outbursts of stormy

314 SCANDINAVIAN ART

weather. On the whole, though, he was an artist whose
careful, refined, finished pictures always were an ornament
to the exhibitions — which cannot be said of many of the
paintings of the period under discussion.

Such a period of stagnation as the early seventies has
never been known before or since in Danish art. Three-
quarters or more of the painting had become landscape.
And what did it amount to? What there had been of in-
spiration, or at least of warmth, had sunk to tepid routine.
Tenseness had been succeeded by the relaxation of all ardor
and energy in the treatment of nature, to which for twenty
years previous every effort of Danish art had been devoted.
Debility had spread far and wide. Art had become a leis-
ure occupation, a domestic pastime, a handicraft.

While Danish art was in this state, French art had made
tremendous strides. On the one hand, there were the new
requirements for the rendering of material objects imposed
by the cry for "realism;", on the other, there were the fugi-
tive color effects, which French artists felt bound to fix
still living on their canvas. The term "impressionism" was
already on men's lips. Both of these new methods de-
manded ability, especially in execution, of a degree un-
dreamed of in Denmark. In France men had attained the
necessary skill by. various means, among others by a
thorough study of the old Spanish masters, Ribera, and,
particularly, Velazquez, "le peintre le plus peintre qui ne fut
jamais." Thus a real, true art of painting had grown up
in France with the emphasis on carefully worked-out color
schemes, while in Denmark the painters were still content
merely to cover the canvas with colors.

There were some people in Denmark, however, even
before the Universal Exposition of 1878, whose eyes had
been opened to the advantages to be gained by young paint-
ers from a journey to Paris. From 1 877-1 878 on, the city
on the Seine became the meeting-place, as Rome had been
before. For the second time Danish art was regenerated
by contact with French. What David had been to Eckers-
berg, Bonnat was to be to Kroyer and Tuxen.

VII

THE COLORISTIC AWAKENING

A YEAR, a day, may be epoch-making. On closer in-
spection, however, the epoch which the year or the
"day in question appears to have inaugurated will
almost always be found to have begun some time before.
This is true of the period in Danish art of which the year
1878 is the apparent starting point. Tuxen, Kroyer, and
their contemporaries were not the first Danish painters of
that generation to seek the fructifying atmosphere of
France. They had a predecessor in Bache, who had been
in Paris in the late sixties. He had acquired there a tech-
nique which was broader and more powerful than what he
had learned from Marstrand, and he had also learned to
use his palette so that his art was much more striking in its
versimilitude than the work of older painters. He was
fond of painting dogs, cattle, and horses, and also did por-
traits and genre pictures, all with sound ability and at the
same time with a spontaneous boldness and freshness which,
we can easily realize, must have been bewildering in that
period. He quickly met with approval, and he strengthened
his early reputation by his really excellent painting, A
String of Horses in Front of a Tavern, one of the best of
Danish genre paintings. Soon, however, he became an
official painter, that is to say, he allowed his talents to be
made use of by influential outsiders instead of applying them
according to his own judgment. He painted posthumous
historical portraits and great heroic compositions for the
National Historical Museum at Frederiksborg. These all

315

316

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A String of Horses in Front of a Tavern, by Otto Bache

bear witness to his good head and his trained hand, and also
to his patriotic heart, especially manifest in The Soldiers'
Return to Copenhagen in 1849; but such pictures as these,
on prescribed topics, of course, gave no indication of the
bright future that awaited Danish Art.

Another predecessor of the generation of the eighties
was Rosenstand: He began by modeling himself after
Marstrand; he had something of his gift for narrative, but
lacked his humor, so, when he tried to illustrate Holberg, he
failed. He was a pupil of Bonnat, and brought back from
Paris a trained European technique and a luminous palette.
His coloring rapidly lost its lustre, but he preserved his
brilliant technique, and this led him to emulate Marstrand
in an attempt at monumental historical painting. Twice in
succession he was the winner in competitions for the decora-
tion of the Festival Hall in Copenhagen University, and
the paintings he did for it, despite their lack of style, were
distinguished by their naturalness and animation.

Bache and Rosenstand mark the half-way point between
the old and the new in Danish art. For some years, Carl
Bloch held a position similar to theirs. It remained for

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 317

From Juel Lake, by Godfred Christensen

two landscape painters to lead Danish art one step further
in the purely pictorial direction. The more radical of these
was Godfred Christensen. He painted a series of striking
pictures, some of them quite pretentious, in which the col-
ors had a luminous quality and the summer a sunny radiance
hitherto unseen in his native country, but the swift, facile
play of the brush over the surface of natural objects — land,
water, and foliage — left untouched what was real and per-
manent in the subject. Zacho may be placed in the same
category: a painter of more historical than intrinsic sig-
nificance. He made a great sensation in 1 88 r with The
First Snowfall and A Jutland Forest Scene, two big pictures
of solid and obvious merit, but he, too, lacked depth in his
attitude toward nature. In fact, he soon fell back into the
ranks of the indolent followers of routine. It was not so
with Niss. He had character; there was something vigor-
ous and bluff about him that suggested autumn weather —
and autumn was the season he most enjoyed painting. At
first he used to make for the inland forest lakes of North
Sjaelland in October, but later some seafaring instinct in his
bold nature roused him to go in search of autumn weather
at its keenest and wildest, on the shores of the Danish seas,

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SCANDINAVIAN ART

The First Snowfall, by Christian Zacho

or even out on the high seas, and from these trips he brought
home studies of the sea which were truer, saltier, than any-
thing that the painters who specialized in marines were in
the habit of producing. There is nothing in the work of
men like Blache or Carl Rasmussen that can compare with
these sea-pictures of Niss's later years, although Blache was
a sailor and Rasmussen was a great traveler and painted
interesting pictures of Greenland. Locher, who like Niss,
exercised an invigorating influence on Danish art in the
early eighties, was the only other man of the time who
showed any such spontaneous — even crude — ability to
transfer to canvas the freshness of nature.

The other members of this circle, in which Rud. Bissen
may also be included, went no further. All had more power
than delicacy, both in feeling and execution. For the honor
of the profession they set upon nature with their fists, and
often treated her brutally. None of them could draw much
better than was necessary for household purposes, but they
were out to paint — never mind about drawing ! Fortunately
the leading figure painters were men of far finer calibre, and
had acquired — first as pupils of Bonnat and later through all
sorts of other influences, direct and indirect — the funda-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 319

Sunflowers, by Thorvald Niss

mentals of that formal training which was so woefully
lacking in the landscape painting of the time.

Tuxen was the earliest to show the good effects of formal
training. He was intelligent, tractable, and persistently
diligent. He quickly developed great technical skill, and
when he astonished the artistic world of Copenhagen with
his brilliant Susanna in the Bath, in 1879, he seemed
destined to great achievements. A treasury of precious pos-
sibilities appeared to stand open to him. The curse that
lay on him was that he did not really know what to do with
all this wealth. With no other focus for his artistic char-
acter than an interest in the pictorial, so many-sided that it
lacked definite direction, he lavished his riches on subjects

320

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Susanna in the Bath, by Laurits Tuxen

about which he did not specially care. Finally he took to
squandering them on enormous paintings, crowded with
figures, of court festivals at home or abroad. He deserves
far more gratitude for his generosity as one of the founders
and supporters of the free schools which made it possible
for young artists to partake of his great hoard of knowl-
edge, for in this way he unquestionably contributed largely

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 321

Italian Hatmakers, by Peter Severin Kroyer

to the development of Danish art — just as another aimless
painter, Schwartz, took part in the education of the younger
generation as a teacher, and did his best work in that
capacity.

The man, who, more than any other, had the power to
inspire and fascinate by the example he set, was the master,
Kroyer. He was almost a master when he was only a
student himself! He was almost a master of character

322 SCANDINAVIAN ART

delineation when, at twenty, he painted his Fishermen at
Anchor in Hornbaek; almost a master of draughtsmanship,
form, and execution when, barely thirty, after he had studied
under Bonnat and had been influenced by Velazquez, he
painted his Gipsy Quarter of Granada and his Sardine Pack-
ing. He was at last a true master-painter when he produced
the great work of his youth, the already classic Italian Hat-
makers, which aroused a storm of both praise and blame at
the Exposition of 1882.

With the drop that hung threateningly from the nose of
the poor emaciated hatter, Kroyer's naturalism had squeezed
dry both nature and naturalness. It was that same drop
that made the cup of scandal overflow and accordingly
loosed a flood of abuse against the artist, like that which
France had poured out upon Courbet's famous Stone-
breakers. It was truly remarked in Germany that the
two pictures had the same relative significance in France
and in Denmark. Courbet's picture, one should re-
member, was painted thirty years earlier. So far had
Denmark been left behind in the race of European devel-
opment, when Kroyer, with one giant stride, made up the
distance.

He was capable of still more. In the next few years he
overtook French art on one of the main paths of develop-
ment which it had been following since Courbet's day. Like
Courbet, he took up the most difficult problems of coloring:
artificial light, and the conflict between it and daylight; the
reflection of sunlight on summer evenings; and the direct
light of the sun, itself, when it is at its highest and has
routed all shadows. This last problem, especially, interested
him more and more. He did not himself derive much bene-
fit from such experiments, but at that juncture they were of
great advantage to our painting. One may even criticize
him for going to extremes in the attempt to banish all
shadows from his paintings, and for disregarding the danger
to which his eagerness for light subjected him of breaking
up all his forms. He thus weakened many of his later
paintings. This does not, of course, detract from his his-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURA 323.

Fishermen on the Beach at the Skaw a Summer Evening, by Kroyer

torical position as the first artist who consistently prac-
tised open air painting in Denmark.

Many of his most popular works fall within the wide
field of open air painting; his summer evening pictures of
fishermen on the Skaw; his summer day pictures of the same
scene with children bathing. He was also active in most
of the other fields where a painter can gather material
directly from life. He painted genre pictures and interiors
and even flower pictures, but he was especially fond of
painting portraits and big groups. Geographically, also,
his range was inclusive. He had an atelier in Copenhagen,
another on the Skaw, a third in Italy, and in his later years
he often went to Paris to rest. Yet, in nearly all his diversi-
fied work, it is easy to recognize the common feature which
connects all of them with his personality.

Born with the most fortunate artistic endowment, born
to triumph without any great struggle, from the outset
smiled on by life, he remained a lover of all that was smiling
in life. Lover of light and hater of shadow as he was in
life, he was also in his art. Everything that lived and

324

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Music in the Studio, by Kroyer

breathed in the air and the light he saw in its pictorial rela-
tion and pictorially beautified by the atmosphere. This does
not imply that he lacked appreciation of what was human.
In a few of his portraits he went further in this respect than
one might expect, and again in his big groups, of which
Music in the Studio was the first, not only was the likeness
good, but the characterization was often animated. The
important thing to Kroyer, though, was always the pictorial
effect. In Music in the Studio one does not so much see the
figures as divine their presence through the gathering clouds
of tobacco smoke and dusk. In his picture of The Commit-
tee for the French Art Exhibition the subject was spiced
for him by the addition of a difficult lighting problem, the
conflict between lamplight and daylight; the painting of The
Scientific Society was likewise transformed by Kroyer into
a pictorial problem requiring the utmost skill, for he painted
the scene in the glimmer of a great number of separate
lights. When it came to The Members of the Exchange,

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURT 325

326

SCANDINAVIAN ART

he could not think of any pictorial arrangement, and there-
fore his picture of that body is the least interesting picto-
rially, although as a collection of portraits it is perhaps the
soundest and strongest of the series. There were dangers
which threatened Kroyer more and more in various ways
as time went on. He was exposed to one danger from the
very start by his hand, which tempted him to make a game
or a form of amusement out of his work. A greater danger
arose from his light-loving disposition, which tempted him
to deviate from the straight path of the painter, especially
when he was traveling under the southern sun — as we have
already pointed out. This was bad enough, but what was
more serious, it made him too volatile and fond of pleasure
as a man, and gave him a tendency toward sweetness and
sentiment such as we find, for instance, in his painting of him-
self and his wife on the shores of the Skaw on a summer
afternoon. If he had lived more constantly in one place,
and had thereby got a firmer grasp of some one kind of
subject, Kroyer might have maintained even longer the

Will He Clear the Point? by Michael Ancher

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 327

The Sick Girl, by Michael Ancher

position which he held for a number of years as the leading
painter of his native country.

It was certainly by means of a permanent residence and
a firm grasp of one kind of subject that some of his best
contemporaries attained their strength, notably those who
settled down on the Skaw. One of the earliest and best
of this group was Ancher. As a painter he had a hard
road to travel, for to start with he had neither an eye for
color nor a light and easy hand; it was pertinently remarked
of one of his early paintings that it looked as if it had been
"painted in mittens." But he had a marked gift for com-
position and a lively sense of character, and thanks to these
he won his first success, in 1880, when he exhibited Will
He Clear the Point? What was in those days power and
breadth such as had never been seen, no longer looks very
broad or powerful. Ancher fortunately made great prog-

328

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A Calm Summer Evening at the Skaw, by Michael Ancher

ress after that, keeping pace with the times as a first-hand
observer of the effects of atmosphere or color. His first
advance in this respect was due to the influence of his wife,
Fru Anna Ancher. Her work in contrast to his open air
painting, was indoor painting. He followed the Skaw
fishermen on their venturesome expeditions away from
home; she sought the women or the old men at their domes-
tic occupations. As each of them went his separate way
in search of subjects, each also went his separate way in
the treatment of them. She was especially interested in the
inner life of her figures, while he was fond of representing
dramatic situations. He frequently laid on hard and heavy;
she had a naturally light touch, and whatever came from
her hand was always perfect in its way. When she was only
twenty-two, she exhibited The Gull-pluckers, a painting
which is masterly both in narration and in execution. The
old man who here sits bent over his work with a quiet smile,
had been used by Ancher a few years before as the model
for his Laughing Old Man. That was solid, vigorous paint-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 329

The Gull-pluckers, by Anna Ancher

ing, close to nature, and close, too, to Frans Hals in its
liveliness and humor. Fru Ancher's treatment of the old
man is more subdued and more distinguished. Ancher
liked to make his figures address the spectator; in his work
there is a whole gallery of figures who are laughing at the
beholder, talking to him, or looking at him. Fru Ancher's
figures usually are leading a life of their own, unconscious
of the fact that they are being painted.

For this reason, among others, her taste seems more
delicate than his. This refinement of taste, which in its
higher development is perhaps a feminine instinct rather
than masculine, in her art finally encroached on things more
essential. Tempted by her delicate taste for color, she
elaborated the already rather banal modern tonal scale by
placing in juxtaposition numerous shades of the same color,
and her experiments in this direction seem to have deadened
her feeling for the human, which was originally the funda-
mental quality of her work.

Her husband's painting, in contrast to hers, has remained
emphatically masculine. Ancher, it seems, has more virility
than modern painters usually have. An evidence of this is
his strong will, which he shows not only by the way in which

330 SCANDINAVIAN ART

he constantly defies and frequently conquers difficulties, but
by the pleasure he takes in putting himself to unnecessary
trouble, for instance when he repeatedly undertakes vast
canvases with several, or even many, life-size figures. An-
other evidence is the fact, not altogether accidental, that
almost his first artistic enthusiasm, and certainly the one
that determined his artistic career, was for such people as
the Skaw fishermen. The most explicit testimony of all is
Jiis understanding of the outward signs on these men of
their manly strength and courage. Though Ancher is by
no means ignorant of the use of style and the various artifi-
ces which produce monumental effects (see for example
his dignified full length portrait of his wife), it is not by
such means that he so often succeeds in making his fisher-
men true monuments of manliness. He has simply empha-
sized their manliness in accordance with his own manly
instinct and sympathy, and in so doing he has not only
raised them to the level -of heroes, but has at the same
time brought out his own character as the man among
Danish painters.

Old Houses at the Skaw, by Viggo Johansen

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 331

The Children's Bath, by Viggo Johansen

Viggo Johansen, too, is a man, though of a rather differ-
ent type: his position in Danish art is that of the married
man, the man of family. He began, as a pupil of Roed, with
a remarkably firm and sure treatment of form. It was not
until much later that he took to travelling. Yet he had as
much share as a good many of the men who had learned to
paint in France in the inauguration of the movement toward
a fresher and more colorful treatment than had hitherto
been usual. His effort in this direction was put forth in a
few big pictures of striking still life subjects. Johansen's long
series of pictures of his own home life began with A Bed-
room Scene and The Young Mother as a Patient. In these
paintings his treatment of the subjects constantly varied,
but his emotional relationship to them was always the same.
Later he went in for portraits, still life, and landscape, and
he is one of the figure painters by whose help this last branch
was revivified as it could never have been if left to the pro-
fessional landscape painters. Johansen did landscapes of
the Skaw, of Tidsvilde, and especially of Dragor, with

332

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Evening Party, by Viggo Johansen

clear and simple motifs, but offering complicated problems
to him, because of the stress he laid on the phenomena of
lighting. In handling such problems he distinguished him-
self among the very greatest, but it is as a painter of home
life that he stands superior to all. At an early stage he
transferred to his studio painting the knowledge he had
acquired in the open air of the effects of atmosphere on
color, and with his highly developed technique he was able
to make light and air wrap and enclose everything and
everybody in a room, as they do in reality. Far from
weakening the effect of life in his interiors, this enhanced
it and made it more convincing. Looking at one of Johan-
sen's interiors, one always has the startling sensation of
suddenly and unexpectedly bursting through the door into
the privacy of his home. There stands the mother by the
washstand in the bedroom, carefully drying her hands, ab-
sorbed in her contemplation of the little boy who lies asleep
in her big bed. There she sits, in the twilight, by the stove,
telling stories to the children. There are the children

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 333

sitting round the table in the afternoon, deep in their lessons.
Here one is an inadvertent witness of the weekly bath in the
nursery. Here one steps into the intimate family circle on
Christmas Eve, while the children are dancing and singing
around the lighted tree. Here, on another afternoon, one
has dropped in just as the friends are assembled and the
chatter over the toddy is as lively as no one but Johansen
could make it. Or there is a real "party" in the house with
lots of lights and silk dresses and white shirtfronts, and it is
already "after supper," so that one feels a little foolish to
be breaking in upon them all. Thus the artist has kept open
house for every one, and has given every one the pleasure
of seeing what a good time one can have at home, if only
one has the gift for it, and the right kind of heart.

While Johansen was thus a continuator of the distinct-
ively Danish tradition of intimate relationship between the
painter and his subject, and maintained that relationship
more closely than any one else, he was also an artistic inno-
vator, one of the few of his generation who made the step
over to impressionism. There was only one man of that
generation who was more impressionistic than he. That
was the animal painter, Philipsen. Few men have had
such powers of assimilation. Not only did he appropriate
the discoveries of the French impressionists, such as the
decomposition of color, but also certain directly opposite
tendencies, such as the old Dutch masters' feeling for the
effect of line. Despite all this, however much he assimi-
lated from abroad, he managed to remain so Danish in his
point of view that he sometimes reminds one of Lundbye,
although he differs from Lundbye in that he is an inferior
draughtsman and a better painter. He thought his four-
legged friends fortunate in their existence in God's free
world, or rather in that good morsel of it which goes by the
name of Saltholmen. He himself loved nature, and especially
that special place, where there is a wide sky and a clear sun
and plenty of room for the weather. His robust person
found intense physical satisfaction in these surroundings;
this communicates itself to his pictures and is the underlying

334

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Shipping Cattle, by Theodor Philipsen

cause of their freshness. It could not, of course, have com-
municated itself in default of the proper means, but in this
respect he was better equipped than any one else. No one
else could get such intensity in the light, such clearness in
the shadow; no one could compete as he did with the sun-
light effects of nature itself; in fact, with his tendency to
exaggerate color, he was rather inclined to outbid the unified
effects of nature. Thanks to such a dazzling yet always
harmonious palette and a feeling for country which was in
no way inferior to his feeling for animals, this animal
painter developed himself into one of the best landscape
painters that Denmark can claim, the best of all, perhaps,
at depicting wind and weather.

Still more dazzling, externally — at least, when he first
attracted attention — was another painter of animals, Ther-
kildsen, a very able but rather matter-of-fact artist who has
remained true to the promise of his youth, and whose name
will endure among those associated with the coloristic re-
vival in Danish art. Among these names we may also

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 335

count that of the German-trained Bertha Wegmann, known
for a series of accurate and life-like portraits; that of
Brasen, who seriously devoted himself to almost every kind
of painting — animals, genre painting, portraits, and land-
scape; of Schlichting Carlsen, whose spotty brushwork gave
very impressionistic utterance to his vivid sense of the green
luxuriance of summer. In the same connection one might
mention Thiele, who, although older, shared the aims of the
younger men; Anna Petersen, whose virile feeling for char-
acter made her for a brief period one of the strongest and
crudest naturalists of the time; another gifted woman, Sofie
Holten, who likewise was for a few years a doughty cham-
pion of the cause. In this group of painters, who felt them-
selves bound together in the great and inspiring task of
improving the pictorial side of Danish painting, we may
finally include two artists whom it would otherwise be dan-
gerous to classify, because in their wider development they
became too eccentric to be included in any definite category.
The first is Hans Nik. Hansen, whose first bold ventures
as a painter appeared in the agitated period of the early
eighties. We refer especially to From a Graveyard and
The Woman on the Heath, paintings whose revolutionary
technique (using the palette knife and laying the paint on
very thickly) no longer seems as noteworthy as it did then,
but which have abiding value because of the pathos they
attain in their narrative. This gifted artist never succeeded
in producing the great work that was expected of him as a
painter, but as an illustrator and as an etcher he found fluent
and happy expression for the wealth of romantic imagination
which is his most characteristic and personal gift. The col-
lective impression one gets from the illustrations and prints
which set forth his talent is that of an eccentric and lyric
artist who would be without a counterpart had it not been
for the existence of Zahrtmann.

This notable artist played a different part in the develop-
ment of the color sense in Denmark from that of most of the
other leaders. Whereas the others were more or less ob-
jective in their coloring, seeking to reproduce accurately the

336

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Mystic Wedding in Pistoja in the Year 1500 Outside of S. Pietro,
by Kr. Zahrtmann

colors of nature itself, he was emphatically subjective. He
did not neglect the study of natural coloring, but that was not
in his mind an end in itself; it was only a means of testing
his own inward and personal perception of color. For in
contrast to all the others, he had the rare gift of color
imagination, and color imagination of a most unusual kind.
Nature, by some odd caprice, had mixed something Oriental
into the spirit of this man from Bornholm. There was a
suggestion of the Orient in his plump and impassive figures;
there was a strong Oriental element in his gorgeous palette,
his revelling in sheer color, which in the North in the eight-
ies, neurasthenic in its color sense, had the effect of a block
of stone from the Alhambra or a piece of Persian pottery
set down in the midst of Royal Copenhagen porcelain. His
pictures rarely lacked unity of tone, but this was not because
he used a single color as medium, as the others did, but be-
cause he used many pure colors in a mosaic-like arrange-
ment which when seen at some little distance merged into a

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 337

Leonora Christina in Maribo Convent, by Zahrtmann

single tone. The constancy with which he maintained this
unfamiliar attitude toward the question of color, despite the
prolonged indignation of all good people at such obvious
folly or such impudent affectation, gave to Zahrtmann a
twofold influence on our art. In the first place, he had a
general moral influence, for his example encouraged many
others to be themselves and themselves only. In the second
place, he had a specific influence, because his pictures enabled
a lot of decadent neurasthenic eyes to stand the shock of a
strong dose of color, and stimulated the enjoyment of color
in our painting. His many pictures on subjects from Italy,
in which he let his color imagination revel in that bright-hued

338

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Leonora Christina Leaving the Prison, by Zahrtmann

country and renew itself after being shut up in the studio and
spend itself in creative exertion, were especially effective as
propaganda. It is in any case Zahrtmann, and not any of the
men like Kroyer, who had the most important effect on the
perception of color among most of those who later attempted
paintings of the South.

Even more remarkable than the painter of this long series
of Italian pictures, in which there gleam and flash and spar-
kle and shine so many colors and such intense joy of life, was
the artist in whose best paintings, of Leonora Christina, a
strange deep soul glimmers with a dull fire of its own, casting
in the shade its precious setting of colors. From the time
when, in his youth, he painted Aspasia, and instead of paint-
ing her beauty he painted the ruins of her beauty — for he
conceived of her bereaved of her lover and of her son —
Zahrtmann read history in a different way from most men,

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 339

The Death of Queen Sofie Amalie, by Zahrtmann

with more fancy and more vision. It was the same with the
story of Christian IV's unfortunate daughter. His concep-
tion of that sublime figure was founded far more on a naive
emotional sympathy for a spirit such as hers than upon any
rational understanding of her time or her history. He drew
on the period for whatever appealed to his eye in the way
of costumes, furniture, and other accessories, but he made no
attempt at historical accuracy. Perhaps it was just because
he knew a great deal about such things that he frequently
took liberties with them. He liked to take liberties, and
was not above coquetting with his reputation for being — and
his right to be — unlike every one else. Besides, he liked to

340

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of the Organist Mathison-Hansen, by August Jerndorff

paint anything that- made good people wonder whether it
was in jest or in earnest; he steered close to parody and did
not shun even burlesque. His eye found equal satisfaction
in things of the most contrasting natures. He loved painting
flowers, but he also loved painting boils as in his Job. His
enthusiasm was the real secret of his art, lack of restraint
its most profound characteristic. He revelled in exuberant
bodies, exuberant lines, exuberant light effects, colors, mate-
rials. That is merely the outward exuberance. The inward
exuberance, the pathos, such as we see, for instance, in his
pictures of Leonora Christina, depends no less on exuber-
ance of heart than on exuberance of eye and senses. Added
to this, he was so fortunate as to have a positively glutton-
ous energy and capacity for work. It is easy to understand
that from his pictures, at their best and strongest, there

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 341

issued upon Danish art a hot and steaming breath such as
had never before been known. It came from a man who was
boiling over.

It is easier to find any number of men who were his oppo-
sites than to find one who registered a temperature approach-
ing his. One can name Jerndorff, who offers a contrast to
Zahrtmann in that he had neither the courage nor the re-
sources essential to a man who wishes to paint only what
he likes. Especially in his later years, Jerndorff became one
of those whom the authorities preferred to employ, and em-
ployment on official portraits, painted to order, unfortu-
nately monopolized one of his many talents and limited the
activity of the others. If one holds him up in opposition
to Zahrtmann in the matter of warmth, that does not mean
that his work was devoid of temperament. Only he had an
entirely different temperament, one which was as restrained
and delicate as Zahrtmann's was unmanageably violent.
Caution, in his gentle character, was so pervasive that it
overflowed everything that came to his hand. There was
something pious and resigned in his nature which made duty
a pleasure to him, and from his perfectly honest, soberly
veracious and thorough portraits there never breathed the

View Over the Bay at Bastad, by August Jerndorff

342

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Mermaid, by Jerndorff, Drawing for
the Pictorial Work "Troldtoj"

sigh of the dreamer,
whose presence one
sometimes suspects
behind his land-
scapes, but whom
one would never
really know unless
one were familiar
with his drawings.
It is through his
Troldtoj and his il-
lustrations of folk
stories and folk
songs that one rec-
ognizes in Jerndorff
an artistwith a capa-
city for enthusiasm
and imagination, not
to mention his vigorous decorative sense, which makes one
deplore his almost exclusive devotion to portrait painting.
Jerndorff was conscientious and competent as a colorist,
but he was not one of those who showed genius in this respect.
As a draughtsman, however, he was much more modern
than the painters who maintained a closer relationship with
the old Danish masters and preserved certain of their best
features: a certain lovable quality in their treatment, a
tenderness for the gentler side of life together with a dis-
taste for the bitter, and an affectionate attention to detail.
These traits persist in the work of such landscape painters as
the refined and noble Kabell, such figure painters as Haslund.
The latter at times retained something of Roed's coloring,
and no one can make much sensation in an exhibition by
such means in our day. Yet whether he painted landscapes
or animals, portraits or genre pictures, he often attracted
those who were sensitive to the gentle appeal to the heart
which spoke most eloquently from his pictures of child life.
The same kindly appeal, sometimes more movingly
phrased, sometimes, one must admit, with a tone of senti-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 343

mentality, was repeated by Carl Thomsen. He preferred
to deal with the past that is recent enough to have survivors
at the present day, and therefore lingered over the old-fash-
ioned Danish parsonages, with their summer holidays and
their winter life which he depicted, especially in a series of
drawings, with great fidelity to his characters and to the sur-
roundings that moulded them. Of the other "narrative"
painters of the same generation, Helsted was a penetrating
psychologist, and as much may be said of Engelsted. Hel-
sted painted comic genre pictures of Italy half or wholly
satiric; very entertaining, but rather too large, pictures of
bourgeois life, such as The Town Council and A Deputa-
tion; and, finally, very serious-minded religious pictures
whose effectiveness is greatly reduced by their dry and mea-
gre technique. Engelsted, who began very promisingly with
Copenhagen genre pictures, had difficulty later in finding his
field and his form. A third, Irminger, managed better,

Concert in the Studio, by Otto Haslund

344

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A Deputation, by Axel Helsted

although he also tried his hand at every kind of painting,
despite his very limited command of artistic means. In his
early years he painted dragoons; later, beggars, cripples,
and palsied people; then, scenes from a hospital for sick
children; then he suddenly surprised the public by becoming
an enthusiastic painter of healthy children and fresh young
women. He was always a successful narrator, but his pic-
tures were frequently tinged with sentimentality. His most
virile work is in a few portraits which he has completed in
recent years. There is nothing of the subjective warmth
that pervades the work of Carl Thomson and, still more, of
Irminger, in the pathetic or humorous pictures of Frants and
Erik Henningsen. Among the many distinguished prose
artists and the smaller number of poets who have contrib-
uted to Danish art, these two seem like a pair of clever jour-
nalists. Their role has been that of brisk artistic reporters
in the Danish capital. It is all the more natural to think of
them as wielding the pen instead of the brush, because they
both have done a great deal of pen-drawing, and even with
the brush their work has been drawing rather than painting.

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 345

In a different, more purely satiric spirit, and in the unpre-
tentious form of mere illustrations, the life of the capital
has been portrayed by two clever draughtsmen, Alfred
Schmidt and Thies, and, somewhat earlier, also by Tegner,
who was an excellent illustrator of Holberg but rose superior
to this field and branched out into all kinds of decorative
drawing. As has already been suggested, the life of Copen-
hagen streets has for the most part offered very little attrac-
tion to the more recent Danish painters. The same is true
of family life indoors, which so often supplied the earlier
artists with excellent subjects for paintings with numerous

Interior with Figure, by Carl Holsoe

346 SCANDINAVIAN ART

figures. In place of these, interiors with only a single figure,
or with no figures at all, have become usual. Among those
who have painted such interiors was P. A. Schou, who
brought back from France an unusually delicate and highly-
trained color sense; another was Achen, who also produced
sound and capable work in other fields, such as landscape and
portrait painting. Then there is listed, whose brushwork is
rather slight and insignificant, but who has much delicacy of
coloring as a painter and great skill as a color-etcher. Then
again, there are the brothers Holsoe, who are most metic-
ulous in their rendering of old furniture and of the subtle-
ties of close indoor atmosphere. Karl Jensen is an artist of
distinction who has painted a few landscapes of high merit,
but has distinguished himself chiefly as one of the few who
has cultivated interior architectural painting from the purely
pictorial point of view, and has not devoted himself too
ardently to ruler and compass and problems of perspective.
The special and supreme representative of interior paint-
ing, however, in recent Danish art, was Vilhelm Hammers-
hoi, who unfortunately died prematurely. Even in a few
imaginative pictures by this remarkable artist the space and
atmosphere behind the frame is not more densely filled than
in his interiors with the mist which shut him off from life
and made him see. everything toned down to various shades
of grey. Unquestionably his eyesight was affected by a color
neurasthenia, which took the form of a distaste for pure
color. But a peculiarity of eyesight would scarcely have
contributed such a spiritual quality if it had been merely a
matter of taste, and not an expression of his soul. Deeply
ingrained in his nature was an aristocratic, aloof, solitary
attitude toward life, a dread of everything more luxuriant
than the simplest and most Spartan existence, which he him-
self lived in his own quiet rooms, rooms that, like a Northern
counterpart of Des Esseintes, he decorated in the few tones
which could supply the only color harmony his sensitive
nerves could bear. Through these rooms a silent little
woman occasionally passed. She was allowed there because
her dark dress made such a good contrast to the walls and

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 347

Interior with Figure, by Vilhelm Hammershoi

doors. The same function was fulfilled here and there by a
single mahogany frame, an old escritoire, an old cupboard
or table. It is in a special sense, and only for lack of a better
word, that one speaks of "contrast" between colors in Ham-
mershoi's work. Into the play of grey and white tones which
form the dominant harmony of his pictures, other colors
ventured shyly and only in small fragments; Hammershoi's
brush, always tentative and hesitating, was never more
disspirited than when called upon to apply such a particle of
color to his canvas. When the color was at last actually on

348

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of a Young Girl, by Vilhelm Hammershoi

the canvas — one recalls, for instance, a yellow bedpost, won-
deringly and apologetically intruding itself upon the unani-
mously grey and whitish tones of a simple little interior — it
seemed to be still trembling from some powerful agitation,
and, in fact it was trembling in the most agitated mind, or at
least in the most peculiarly sensitive soul, in all Danish art.
Interior painting, however, was not Hammershoi's only
field. In his youth he gave vent to his mal de siecle in a
Job's Complaint. Later in Artemis he found expression for
the continuance of his suffering, and for his yearning for
beauty and his somnambulistic longing for a remote and

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 349

misty land of dreams. From the time when, still very young,
he painted the sorrowful picture of his sister, he used portrait
painting as a means of relief for his own feelings, and later
he uttered the melancholy of his soul in landscapes with great
sweeping lines under vast grey skies, or else in the heavy
grey masses of beautiful old architecture, whose sub-
dued aspect, like his own subdued art, is a silent protest
against all the glaring and staring bad taste of modern
times.

There is nothing un-Danish about Hammershoi, in fact
it is easy to recognize something genuinely Danish in his
sadness, his renunciation of the world, the melancholy and
weariness of his nature. But in the perception of beauty
neither Danish painting nor Danish poetry has ever offered
anything like his faint and ailing soulfulness. Danish liter-
ary art in its highest achievement has been able to vie with
Danish painting; in fact the greatest master of language,
J. P. Jacobsen, produced pictorial effects with words before
the painters had attained any corresponding success with
colors, and in so doing he exercised an undoubted influence
on both the older and the younger painters. The influence
of his prose can best be seen in Zahrtmann, of his poems in
Julius Paulsen. He was one of many who sowed seed in
the latter's extraordinarily fertile mind. Paulsen's early
work reminds us of Vermehren, his work from a little later
period of Viggo Johansen, from a little later still, especially
in his representation of the female nude, of Henner or his
master, Rembrandt, who maintained the strongest hold of
all on Paulsen's mind. This artist, when routine does not
spoil his efforts, has the most masterly control over a won-
derful instrument of color, with a tone which, not unlike
Rembrandt's, sounds plaintively in the bass, and in the treble,
again like Rembrandt's, rings out exultingly in the light as
though released from prison. The dramatic effects in Paul-
sen's work are due to his dramatic treatment of light and
shade. When he has attempted dramatic effects by the ap-
plication of more palpable methods, he has either partly or
entirely failed.

35Q

SCANDINAVIAN ART

From the Town of Rye, by Julius Paulsen

This peculiar sense of the dramatic relation between light
and shade has been of great advantage to him as an interior
painter. It has enabled him to imbue commonplace subjects
with great pictorial interest. The same thing applies to the
best of his portraits, in which he has succeeded in combining
his pictorial power with an unusual accuracy and firmness
of characterization, whereas in his smaller and also in
several of his larger group pictures the pictorial-musical
quality has often asserted itself to a greater degree than was
beneficial to the characterization. With due respect for the
great tasks which this artist has set himself, to which he has
devoted more energy than one would think his gentle nature
could possess, one cannot help preferring what seems to have
been to him a sort of recreation, the landscapes which are
the purest expression of his inmost longings and aspirations.

These landscapes are almost exclusively pictorial in form.
There are a few, such as The Two Oaks, which may seem
to have been chosen with an eye to an effective motif, but
otherwise they are entirely devoid of composition or deco-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 351

Evening, by Julius Paulsen

rative effect of line. One landscape may have a look of
Jutland in contrast to another which suggests Sjaslland, but
what interests him most is the times of day when the indi-
vidual in nature is dissolved and merged into those unities
to which men have given the name of moods. He paints
memory pictures of dusk, of evening, of night, almost devoid
of form, almost purely color, and in these nocturnes he has
often attained a power of expressing moods that compares
in poetic intensity with the most beautiful of Jacobsen's
lyrics.

It is remarkable that the poetry of the Danish summer
evenings and summer nights has found so few other
exponents since Sonne's time. For a few years the attempt
was successfully made by N. V. Dorph, in whose paint-
ings, unlike Paulsen's, the effect of the mood was height-
ened by the strong simple lines of the landscape, as well
as by the pervading blue tone, which rarely has been more
successfully achieved than by this painter. In more
recent years Dorph has devoted himself chiefly to portrait-
painting and evidently found more satisfaction in apply-
ing his ripening intelligence and education to this purpose

352

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of the Artist's Mother, by N. V. Dorph

than in living on the remnants of his youthful enthusiasm
for nature.

Of the painters so far mentioned in this chapter the great
majority were born in the capital or in provincial towns,
only a very few in the country; hardly more than one was
really a peasant by birth. Without doubt .this distribution
partly explains why the representation of peasant life is
so rarely found in the work of these men. What the
period did produce of any real significance in this field is

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 353

predominantly, in fact almost exclusively, due to the activity
of a few painters of peasant stock. One of these, R. Chris-
tiansen, who is incidentally a good animal painter, has re-
peatedly set forth a view from above of the life of the prov-
inces or of the country districts, and in his own peculiar
form, half drawn and half painted, has shown its quaint
or its comic side, sometimes with keen good sense, sometimes
with robust humor. The other peasant-born painters of
peasant life of the same generation have been kept as free
from caricature by their deep sympathy for country life as
they have from false idealization by their intimate knowledge
of it. Thus Brendekilde, in his early years, painted a little set
of pictures of peasants which in psychological insight, as well
as in pictorial value, stood high among the pictures of
Danish popular life at that period. Mols, also, has a deep af-
fection for the country and the society from which he springs.
He has a tender heart, and in his treatment of the rough Jut-
land heath or the wild West Jutland coast there is a large sym-
pathy, sometimes touched with sentimentality, for the living
creatures, human and especially animal, that suffer from the
harsh climate. Bjerre, too, a somewhat younger artist, has
a deep-rooted feeling for his native place, the ill-omened
coast of Harboore, which lies like a churchyard wall round
the grave-strewn sea. Unlike Mols, he has an impediment
in his artistic expression, now groping for a word, now em-
phatically concise, so that his utterance resembles that of
the people he describes. It is perhaps this very taciturnity
and artlessness of expression which make his presentation
of the pious resignation of the assembled Harboore folk in
the face of God and destiny so extraordinarily forceful and
gripping.

This same artlessness with the addition of a certain
awkwardness of expression is responsible for a great deal
of the primitive effects of Ring's first pictures. Profoundly
natural, he was elementary in his emotion, which was simply
a family feeling for the locality in which he lived and its in-
habitants; elementary also in his intelligence, in so far as
he treated things pictorially without any deeper thought

354

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Beggar Children Outside a Farmhouse, by Lauritz Ring

about them ; elementary likewise in his artistic point of view,
as he had an eye for the whole rather than for detail, in
which respect he often offended by defective drawing. He
had great simplicity of character, so that simple expression
was the only kind that came natural to him. There is a
difference, of course, between simple expression and the sim-
plified expression that Ring used later. A simplified expres-
sion is a cultivated, conscious abstraction from the complex.
Complicated natures find this difficult, so it is rarely quite

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 355

Spring, by Lauritz Ring

natural. Ring, however, being genuinely primitive, con-
trived to do it quite easily after a brief contact with artistic
education, and the simplified expression of his later pictures
therefore seems no less natural than the simple expression of
the earlier ones. In the picture of two young girls in a peas-
ant's garden in the springtime or in the picture of a woman
standing in a doorway, despite all the mastery of style and
the sophistication, there is the same touching simplicity as
in The Christmas Visit, The Shoemaker, or other pictures
which Ring painted in the years of his unspoiled innocence.

356 SCANDINAVIAN ART

One can therefore say that, viewed in its larger lines, his
work is uniform, although he did have "periods" not only
in style but in color — for instance, one when the dominant
tone in his landscapes was grey, and other when it was
usually blue. This last change in his coloring was unques-
tionably the result of a change in his outlook on life, which
became brighter and milder as the years went by. Yet
whether he painted grey or blue, whether life looked dark
to him or shining, his relation to that part of life which he
chose to depict was one of the most intensely sincere and in-
timate that has ever existed in Danish art. This relationship
resulted in such complete understanding that it seems as if
no one else had properly portrayed the Sjaelland peasantry.
Ring's art has effaced all earlier representations of every-
thing minute or small of stature, indoors or under the open
sky, which a Sjaelland country town has to offer, and has
established a version which for the present is ultimate, by
the simple method of seeking the truth, and telling the truth,
which moves him deeply. The Sjaelland town with the bare
country round it was well known before this time but it was re-
garded as a place which men fled from because of its loneliness
and boredom. Ring has taught us that life here, as every-
where, has its poetry and nature its beauties. Among these
is a scale of a few delicate and exquisite grey tones, peculi-
arly appropriate to his own temperament, a beauty that com-
pares with many of the sights that people go far to see,
though this lies right on the beaten track. Out on the high-
ways and byways, literally speaking, Ring has found beauty.
The road that runs through so many of his pictures might
be taken as a clue to their significance, almost as a symbol
of his art.

Ring has in Hans Knudsen a follower who has sometimes
gone even further in the quest for bare landscape motifs.
A few others among the younger men have likewise attached
themselves to the older painters. There is a reminiscence
of Zahrtmann (whose wider influence will be discussed in
the next chapter) in Wilhjelm's Italian pictures. There is
an occasional memory of Johansen's landscapes in the work

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 357

of Gottschack, who died young, a sort of modern Dreyer,
a clever sketcher of landscapes and an excellent colorist. Ole
Pederson, a landscape and animal painter who likewise died
young, recalls Philipsen. It is difficult to determine the in-
fluences that affected certain others of the younger natural-
istic painters. This applies to Seligmann, a man of rather
scattering talents, who painted a little of everything — a few
notable interiors, such as A Sunday in the Thorvaldsen
Museum, a few fine portraits, clever landscapes and archi-
tectural pictures, but also a few failures, notably several
historical pictures. It applies equally to the lyrically in-
clined nature and genre painter Rud. Petersen; to the
robust landscape painter Hans Dall; to the marine painter
Thorolf Petersen, who finally has gone over to scene-paint-
ing; to Schlichtkrull, a sound portrait and landscape painter;
to Repholtz, who in his latter years has made a success in
black-and-white and lithography; to Frydensberg, who for
many years has struggled hard to establish his scheme of
coloring; to Luplau Jansen, who has been rather variable
in his manner, but in his genre painting is always virile and
pleasing; to Knud Larsen, who has gradually obtained offi-
cial recognition as the sound and able portrait painter of
good society; and to many others who have made names for
themselves or at least have got themselves talked about a
great deal. Among these should be mentioned Henrik Jes-
persen, whose able and daring, half-scientific attempts to
paint the sun and reproduce not merely its dazzling but its
blinding effect on the eye, by causing the colors of the "sun-
spots" to mix on the retina, has in a way marked the extreme
limit of the effort of naturalistic art to produce color illusions
that can compete with nature itself and break down the dis-
tinction between nature and art. One could hardly go fur-
ther in the direction of deceiving the eye. Yet the problem
of art is not to deceive the eye, but to satisfy the senses and
the spirit with beauty, and just as naturalism was celebrating
its greatest triumphs of coloristic illusion, spirits were begin-
ning in many places to crave some nobler form of artistic
enjoyment.

358 SCANDINAVIAN ART

The reaction against naturalism in Denmark dates as far
back as 1890 or, if one prefers, 1891, the year of the first
"Free Exhibition," in which the new movements were fav-
ored, whereas in the official exhibition at Charlottenborg
there had been discrimination against them. From about
that time there arose a succession of painters who had been
educated as naturalists and, in full possession of all the pic-
torial expedients, foreswore all profit from that source in
the hope and the belief that by using the primitive methods
of the painters of old they might attain or at least approach
the artistic standards of the great men of the past.

VIII

THE QUEST OF STYLE AND RECENT
TENDENCIES

FUTURE ages will find it easier than we to distinguish
between the numerous intellectual movements that com-
bined to cause the reaction against naturalism. There
was, of course, an element of romanticism in the distaste
for life as it is and as modern art is content to present it to
us, and in the longing for life as it used to be, or as it seemed
to the childlike view of the art of olden times. One might also
attribute to other intellectual phenomena — spiritualism and
other forms of mysticism — or the enthusiasm for the Middle
Ages and the early Renaissance, some share in the romantic
reaction against naturalism; such enthusiasm for the past is
one of the familiar effects of the fragrance, benumbing to
common sense, which rises from the blue flower of Romanti-
cism wherever it spreads its calyx. The cult of the Middle
Ages and the early Renaissance in Germany about 1815
(the Nazarenes), in England about 1848 (the pre-Raphael-
ites, in France about 1890 (Salon de la Rose Croix),
was in each case the expression of some sort of atti-
tude toward life; in Denmark it never became much more
than an attitude toward art. What there was in Denmark of
a Gothic or otherwise romantic attitude toward life was ab-
sorbed by the review Taarnet, and with it disappeared almost
entirely, having had only a very transitory effect on a few
of our painters in their early youth. The romantic attitude
toward art, on the contrary, took hold of some of the most
modern painters, and left lasting traces in their work.

In its further evolution, which swept rapidly onward, the
enthusiasm of the romantic attitudes toward art for the
artistic forms of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance
broadened out until it included all artistic forms which raised

359

360 SCANDINAVIAN ART

the eye and the mind to concepts superior to the common-
place. Rome and Florence (and in certain cases also
Athens) now supplanted Paris as the place of pilgrimage,
and instead of bringing home from the South the greatest
possible number of little paintings, the pilgrim's object now
was to bring back the greatest possible number of big im-
pressions. What men hoped for was to be able to restore
one of the marvels of creation, nature, to something of its
majesty, which artistic naturalism had dissolved into triv-
ialities, and to restore the other great marvel of creation,
the human form, to something of its aristocratic dignity,
which democracy, faithful follower of naturalism, had sac-
rificed to mere truthfulness. This hope was sustained by
the realization that line is the essential medium of ex-
pression of an art that aims at style and decorative effect,
whereas color in such an art is only a means and not
an end in itself.

A profound distaste for oils became widespread under
these circumstances. It was the use of oils, so men thought
then, as they have thought before under corresponding con-
ditions, that had led art astray from its great task. The sal-
vation of art was commonly sought in the media of the old
masters, in tempera or fresco. As fresco postulates walls,
and it was necessary to rest content with canvas for the time
being, painters made use either of the prevailing oils, adding
a dull finish, or of the new tempera colors which enterpris-
ing firms began to keep in stock. The application of gold
was likewise revived — in fact, in despair at their inability
to find means of expression which improved sufficiently on
the mere reproduction of nature, either in decorative or in
symbolical effect, the painters had recourse to untried and
ill-chosen means. There was one who embossed a golden
corn-field in copper and painted in a sky in ordinary oils.
There was another who cut his whole picture in wood, then
painted it, and picked out details in bronze. Many other
expedients might be described, showing the desperation of
those who were anxious to express the new gospel but who
could not utter it in sufficiently eloquent form.

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 361

These artists, were, of course, not entirely mistaken in
their belief that the great traditions of art were inseparably
connected with the media used before the discovery of oil
painting. It was painting in oils that gave rise to easel
painting, and it was easel painting that caused art to forsake
first its monumental function and then its monumental point
of view, growing narrower and narrower in its scope as it
disassociated the pictorial from the architectonic and plastic,
thus sundering the unity of the arts which is the secret of
true purity of style. But they were mistaken in many other
ways — especially in their belief that they were in a position
to emancipate themselves from all connection with the pre-
ceding generation and the naturalistic education it had trans-
mitted to them. More than one of them lacerated himself
in the foolhardy attempt to tear himself free from his own
previous evolution. There were, in fact, only two of them
who escaped unhurt, and these two succeeded only because
they were peculiarly well equipped for the struggle.

The special gift that enabled the brothers Skovgaard to
be strongly traditional in their decorative work, despite the
fact that they were almost purely naturalistic in their easel
painting, was based on their inheritance from their father, the
old landscape painter. His talent had developed not merely
on his feeling for character, but on a sense of style acquired
from his study of the art of former times, plainly evident in
all the decorative work from his hand. This sense of style
and the decorative faculty resulting from it, which in the
father's case was mainly the product of education, was in-
herited by the sons as a natural talent. With this dual ca-
pacity as a base-line from which they could pilot their course
alternately in the traditional and the naturalistic directions,
they were able successfully to weather the rock in which so
many others ran aground — the rock of no style at all.

Neither of them made color the subject of thorough study
or subtle discrimination. Accustomed to using paint decora-
tively in a large and elemental spirit of their own, they were
not sensitive to the breaking up of colors in nature, which
when faithfully reproduced contributes so much to the effec-

362

SCANDINAVIAN ART

60
3

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 363

tiveness of purely naturalistic painting. They none the less
succeeded as naturalistic painters — producing many land-
scapes that are pleasing and a few that are really notable,
fresher than their father's pictures, and recalling some of the
best of his studies. They also did many pleasing and a few
notable genre pictures. The elder, Joakim, especially dis-
tinguished himself as a painter of his own family life in the
home of his childhood, scenes of simple contentment that
carry one's thoughts back not only to the older Skovgaard,
who lived here, but also to his close friend and sympathizer,
Constantin Hansen, who lived in a similar home and painted
similar pictures, although in a less bountiful spirit. In gen-
eral, there is much in the work of the two brothers that
reminds us of this friend of their father's quite as much as
it reminds us of the father himself. He stood upon the cen-
tury old foundation of inspiration from the art of ancient
Greece, and also of Italy, in its period of full blossoming.
They stood upon the newer foundation of inspiration from
the art of former times in its period of development, a foun-
dation that had been slowly but surely deposited beneath
the tides of successive artistic movements all through the
nineteenth century, and since about 1890 has seemed to
replace the older foundation for a time, may be even for
centuries. The modern archaism of the two brothers, there-
fore, is in contrast to the old-fashioned classicism of Con-
stantin Hansen. The contrast is weakened, however, and
the relationship revealed, by the fact that their archaism
quite as much as his classicism is saturated with the spirit of
Grundtvig, who, childlike, popular, Danish and bold, re-
modelled everything, Greek or Italian, to fit his own robust
Northern measure. Thus these two brothers, besides all
their other advantages over their contemporaries who broke
away from naturalism, had the advantage of inheriting an
attitude toward life which had been tested and found valid
as a support for an aspiring attitude toward art by men like
their father and Constantin Hansen. It is in fact impossible
to name any one in Denmark whose work has roots struck
so deep in the best traditions as these two brothers. Through

364 SCANDINAVIAN ART

their relation to their father and his contemporaries, their
work has a root in the Denmark of 1850; through Grundt-
vig, in the Denmark of the heroic era ; through Giotto, in old
Italy; through unknown masters, in the oldest and noblest
period of Greece. Small wonder, then, that nothing seems
more firmly grounded than these brothers' taste and style.

With the same endowment, the same upbringing, the same
travels and experiences, for a long time it seemed that they
must resemble each other, until, after a journey to Italy,
the development of the elder brother, Joakim, gained greater
headway than that of the younger. The colorful, brilliant
landscapes and figure paintings, which he produced in Italy
under the influence of Viggo Pedersen and Zahrtmann,
merely promised to Danish art another distinguished ob-
server of nature, but in a set of drawings for Grundtvig's
hymn, "O Blessed Day," which he completed shortly after
his return, he showed the tempestuous imagination which pro-
claimed this was an artist who might be expected to sweep
down upon the land like a storm. In the picture of the Pool
of Bethesda the crowd of unfortunates who frantically rush
for the water as the angel stirs it, in the picture showing the
walls of Paradise towering with celestial boldness round the
scene of Christ and the Thief in the Garden of Eden, in the
picture of Permina -exchanging glances with Hannah — in all
these there was the lightning flash of his genius. It was not,
however, until the appearance, in 1893, of Christ in the
Kingdom of the .Dead that the whole storm burst. A super-
fluity of strong impressions of beauty must have been stored
in Skovgaard's unusually receptive mind at that time, for it
seems as if a collision of such impressions must have caused
the explosion that brought forth this picture. He had worked
it up out of a fancy of Grundtvig's, apparently not without
knowledge of Tintoretto's treatment of the same theme
(Christo in Limbo, S. Cassiano, Venice) ; the dominant
chord was a Halleluja, in which resounded the tones of
Grundtvig's deep-booming organ. With the exception of a
few traces of Michelangelo in the figure of Eve, none of the
impressions of beauty whose collusion gave rise to the pic-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 365

Christ in the Kingdom of the Dead, by Joakim Skovgaard

ture could be singled out. It was simply perceptible from
the huge formations in the picture that mighty forces had
rushed together and that a vast phenomenon of nature had
taken place in a great artist's soul.

To this tremendous outburst succeeded calmer times in
Joakim Skovgaard's being. Meanwhile he kept on with his
series of notable naturalistic landscapes (especially on sub-
jects from Halland in Sweden), added to the small number
of his pictures from Greece (among others his charming
picture of the Erechtheion Caryatids), and gave expression
to his religious thought in a succession of religious works
(an altar for St. Nikolaj Church at Svendborg, the An-
nunciation in the Helligaandskirke, mosaics in the Emanuel
Church, projects for the decoration of Viborg Cathedral),
which testify to a searching study of the figure style of Giotto
and his contemporaries. Humbly acknowledging that mod-
ern times had little possibility of producing anything new in
ecclesiastical art that can compare with the best of the old,
Skovgaard steeped himself in the conventions of the old
painting. His sound sense, however, and the wholesomeness

366

SCANDINAVIAN ART

of his taste, fortunately soon broke away from the ascetic
form of the Middle Ages, and there finally remained in his
style nothing of the old art except its genuine and naive,
simple and primitive spirit. Not only in his illustrations
of folk-tales that he did in this period (The Maiden in the
Hind's Skin, The Maiden in the Bird's Skin, and Urselille),
his own healthy, robust, figure style emerges; also in a few
of the biblical pictures, which were a kind of preparation

The Newly-created Eve, water-color, by Joakim Skovgaard

for the Viborg decorations, it was already manifest in all its
original freshness. One should especially note the big water
color of The Newly-created Eve, in which Eve deserves
artistically the designation "newly-created," and in which
no atom of the dust of erudition has marred the freshness of
the first joyful morning of the ages, of mankind, and of
flowers. That Skovgaard mastered this particular subject
in this pure, sparkling spirit, shows, perhaps, better than any-
thing else, that he combined with all his learning not only
a fresh but a primevally fresh perception of the beauty of
creation. And it need hardly be said that this faculty was

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 367

a fountain which rippled through his other gifts and gave
them their wonderful luxuriance.

Thus prepared and matured, he approached the great
achievement of his manhood — his real life's work, one may
well say: the decoration in fresco of Viborg Cathedral with
the Bible in pictures. Such a work, requiring a great number
of compositions, naturally cannot be described in a summary
like this. It must suffice to indicate its character.

A feature of this vast scheme of decoration which is im-
mediately striking and at the same time deeply significant
is the unusually genuine, authentic quality of the religious
feeling, and the natural connection between that and the
artistic feeling — something almost unparalleled in modern
ecclesiastical art. Christianity in its joyous, childishly trust-
ing form, characteristic of the school of Grundtvig, of which
Skovgaard was an adherent, has here entered into such an
intimate association with art that the effect is not merely
that of art but of preaching. Believers, at least believers in
communion with Grundtvig, must here feel themselves con-
strained to admit that the scenes of the Old and New Testa-
ment must have taken place just as Skovgaard has repre-
sented them. It is as though Skovgaard had been initiated
into all the mysteries of heaven and the after life; as if, for
instance, he had seen with his own eyes the angels opening
the great gates of Paradise. Nor is this impression hard to
account for. He really did see all these things with his
inward eyes, and as his eyes were those not only of a be-
lieving Christian but of a great creative artist with a sure
instinct for taste, measure, and style, and a no less certain
instinct for striking decorative effects, he moulded everything
that came to his hand into a series of compositions which,
resting partly on a foundation of the most deep-seated emo-
tions, partly on a foundation of artistic education equally
profound and solid, bear the great and noble stamp of classic
inevitability, simplicity, and wholesomeness. One can and
will readily admit that the Viborg pictures would be incon-
ceivable were it not for certain prototypes from earlier
times. Skovgaard, for instance, learned from the medieval

368

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Great Supper, fresco in Viborg Cathedral, by Joakim Skovgaard

painters to dispense with linear and aerial perspective and to
conjure up settings for one biblical scene after another with
only an indication of locality. It is also easy to see that
in some places he is under the influence of Rembrandt, in
others under the influence of the Greeks. Everything is

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 369

The Crucifixion, fresco in Viborg Cathedral, by Joakim Skovgaard

completely assimilated, however, transformed and individu-
alized into a style which is Skovgaard's own, a style severe
yet in no wise stiff or cold; it is as living and warm in its ex-
pression as life itself, simple, natural, without a trace of the
effort which usually follows like a shadow all the ambitious
endeavors of modern art.

370 SCANDINAVIAN ART

With its four or five hundred figures, covering an area of
something like 16,000 square feet, the Viborg decoration
is the most colossal work in all Danish art. It affords, one
may safely say, a complete and exhaustive study of Skov-
gaard's characteristics as a monumental painter. His deco-
rative talent, however, has phases which must be sought
elsewhere. He has furnished drawings for seals and med-
als, for bookbindings, for furniture and other useful articles,
for tapestries, and for a few excellent fountains, of which
two have been erected respectively in and near the new
Town Hall in Copenhagen. He takes delight in decorative
work, and is always eager to do it. This is a family trait,
appearing also in Niels Skovgaard, who devotes himself
so ardently to decorative work that, as he is not so produc-
tive as his brother, he has been less active as a painter than
the equally versatile Joakim. A single colossal work, which
is also a masterpiece, has at last come from his sparing hand
after ten years of projects and experiments. This is the
altar-piece in the Emanuel Church in Copenhagen, a repre-
sentation of The Baptism Whitsunday Morning, which with
its vernal and festive tone, its sunshine and soulshine, is one
of the loveliest pictures in recent Danish art, and is especially
noteworthy because of the clarity and intelligibility of the
composition and the genuine feeling of the narration. The
style is the Skovgaard brothers' usual blend of Greek and
Italian archaism with unadulterated Grundtvigianism, child-
like and popular, Danish and bold, here as elsewhere mak-
ing everything conform to its own robust Northern measure.
Whereas Joakim Skovgaard's nature is explosive, his
brother's is, rather, reflective. This explains the effect in
the work under discussion of subsidence and clarification,
of final completeness and restfulness, such as the indefatig-
able Joakim does not always allow himself the time to attain.

Niels -Skovgaard may seem to idle and waste his time,
because it is his nature to muse and meditate. His special
gift is a brilliant decorative imagination, which displays its
wealth no less in his experiments in ceramics than in his etch-
ings and illustrations. In this last field he has created a

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 371

The Baptism Whitsunday Morning, by Niels Skovgaard

Northern style of his own, more symbolical than Frolich's
yet severe and restrained like Constantin Hansen's. It is
more than anything else his plastic work, however, which
constitutes his lasting achievement. His relief of Aage and
Else, his tombstones for Barfoed and Hostrup, his monu-
ment on Lyrskov heath, his Hel Horse fountain, rank among
the best of Danish sculpture. Especially in the last-named
of these big, boldly-carved works his abstinence from all but
the most absolutely necessary lines and forms brings him
close to that sublime renunciation of the unessential which
the oldest monuments of art have taught us to honor as the
highest artistic wisdom.

The landscape painter Viggo Pedersen, whose develop-
ment has since gone through numerous phases, at first re-
sembled the Skovgaard brothers in many ways. Not only
was he the first of the line of those who endeavored to re-
place oils by some new medium, but he ventured into original
fields of his own, trying his hand at religious subjects, imag-
inative subjects, portraits, and genre painting. His style

372

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Chestnut-trees at a Farmhouse, by Viggo Pedersen

in these different fields became even more variable than it
was in landscape paintings, for in that field he formed only
one fruitful union (with French synthetic art), while his
imaginary and religious figures are the offspring of transi-
tory connections Wth many kinds of art, from ancient Italian
down to modern German. Yet all the while his general
artistic trend was more and more definitely toward the Skov-
gaard circle, as is perhaps most plainly evident in the pic-
tures which he, too, painted of his home. These show very
much the same spirit as Joakim Skovgaard's paintings of his
home. This benevolent spirit, unfortunately, has lately for-
saken his landscapes, which are often attractive as compo-
sitions, but show a propensity to an over-exuberant, rich,
glaring color scheme, which is discordant with the rest of
Danish art.

The landscape and figure painter Johannes Kragh (lately
active as a sculptor also), who began as a disciple of Viggo
Pedersen and Skovgaard, is talented, but his individuality
is still unformed and vacillating; he is progressing rather

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 373

Winter Day in Ribe, by Johan Rohde

uncertainly, absorbed in his very praiseworthy ambitions as
to decorative style. The pupil who follows Skovgaard most
closely is Larsen Stevns, who in his biblical pictures has made
the master's style even plainer and more unpretentious than
it is in itself. Likewise very intimately connected with the
Skovgaard circle in the simplicity of her temper is Elise Kon-
stantin Hansen, to whom the decorative style comes natu-
rally, for in her case it is evidently based on her heritage
from her father. It was, however, neither from Greece nor
from Italy but from Japan that she, like Susette Holten, the
Skovgaard brothers' sister, received her decorative impulse,
which, like the Japanese artists, she has devoted chiefly to
the paintings of plants and animals.

In those days, the late eighties and early nineties, painters
in search of forms through which art might be renewed
and elevated turned their eyes in all directions, toward all
periods and countries. Hardly any one had such eyes for

374 SCANDINAVIAN ART

the search as Johan Rohde, who, thanks to his comprehen-
sive education, his clear intelligence, his knowledge of art,
and his critical faculty, occupied a commanding position
among the young men, most of them younger than he, of
that period. He sought and found, after his first hesitating
experiments, a happy medium between the old Dutch land-
scape painting and modern French painting : from the
former he learned the decorative value of the silhouette
effect of a well-chosen motif, and from the latter he learned
to simplify in order to characterize sharply and tersely.
For a long time his painting was rather heavy and laborious,
but if his pictures were somewhat massive they had a com-
pensating quality of saturation and condensation which was
distinctive. Himself a provincial by birth, he had a genuine
and intimate feeling for his subjects, the picturesque little
old-fashioned towns of Holland and Denmark. This feel-
ing imposed certain limits on the formalities of style to which
he was ordinarily partial, and to which he has rendered due
homage in a few dignified portraits, as also in the series
of designs for simple and stately pieces of furniture and
other useful articles in which for the last ten years he has
found extraordinarily abundant expression of his fondness
for style. As a painter he was essentially a follower of the
old Danish artists. One may see this best, perhaps, in the
views of Italy that he painted on his many southward travels,
but his later pictures of Denmark, of Ribe, Fano, or Chris-
tianshavn, also show that in the course of the years he wisely
abandoned the struggle to attain the new and ambitious and
resigned himself to the old, tried, and unpretentious point
of view.

Among his comrades in the youthful struggle for high
ideals were Harald and Agnes Slott-Moller, husband and
wife. He was endowed in his youth with abundant profes-
sional talent; she was if anything rather lacking in this re-
spect, but she had in compensation a poetic gift. She was an
enthusiast for the Middle Ages; he was given to the study
of models, which was to her a painful but necessary means,
but to him an end in itself. She soon infected him with

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 375

Illustration for the Ballad "Duke Frydenborg," bv Agnes
Slott-Moller

the inclination to dream and spin romances, and thereby
weakened his fidelity to simple and natural observation of
reality. A trip which they took together in 1889, visiting
Italy for the first time, brought them very close to each
other, inspiring both with an ardor for style as the sign of
artistic aristocracy. They came home and began to dis-
seminate their conception of style, causing considerable stir
among their friends and associates. From that time on the
journey to Italy again became habitual. Historically, the
service rendered by Slott-Moller and his wife is that they
called attention to the almost forgotten fact that Danish art
might acquire mastery of style as a result of these trips to
Italy.

376 SCANDINAVIAN ART

The overpowering impression of the great painting which
they found in Italy unfortunately did not come to either
of them at the right moment. He had already been too
thoroughly schooled in the downright reproduction of
nature; she, on the contrary, had so little schooling of that
kind that her early-acquired habit of making her style ab-
stract threatened the solidity of her form, already endan-
gered by her choice of subjects. It was in the representation
of scenes and moods from medieval Danish folk-songs
that she had found her life's work. Ever since her child-
hood the low, muffled voices of these ballads had echoed
through her fancy, and with the voices came apparitions of
their heroes. This gave her art from the very outset an in-
corporeal quality. For a long time she resisted this weak-
ness with great energy, until under English influence (Ros-
setti) she was induced to indulge herself in the representa-
tion of the psychic emotions, and as at the same time she
developed a taste for saccharine coloring, the original en-
deavor to attain severity of style was no longer seriously
sustained in her painting. Her endeavor is perhaps most
evident in a few of her plastic works, Ebbe's Daughters,
Queen Dagmar's Death, The Town Council. In its place
of honor over the entrance to the new Copenhagen Raadhus
(Town Hall) the last-named relief will testify to later gen-
erations that even a Danish woman artist, about the year
1900, had attained a realization of the monumental stand-
ards of art.

Of the other member of the couple, Harald Slott-Moller,
it must unfortunately be recorded that, led astray by what
one might call his sweet tooth for beauty, he has not lived
up to the great promise of his youth. If one considers his
whole production as a painter, one is struck by the fact that
a large majority of his works deal with Arcadian and idyllic
subjects. The long series extends from In Arcady (1892)
to In Italy (1903) and on down to the last few years. One
would gladly explain his predilection for such subjects on
grounds of indisputably genuine artistic thirst for the beau-
ties of life, were it possible to overlook the fact that a more

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 377

Summer Evening, by Harald Slott-Moller

worldly appetite has kept him constantly circling round these
subjects, and has led him to emphasize their alluring qualities
more hungrily than is altogether attractive. Finally, his
brushwork has simultaneously become too smooth, and his
coloring much too pretty. The result is that he has on his
conscience a great many failures — pictures of uncertain taste.
Yet even leaving out of consideration the fact that he is much
more frequently successful in the decorative field, he is a man
who cannot be passed over when the history of Danish art
is written. An artist who as a mere youth painted the bril-
liantly clever picture The Doctor's Waiting-room and the
no less brilliantly clever portrait of his wife, whose execu-
tion was so fresh that it faintly recalled no less a person than
Velazquez, will be brought forward again, as he was origi-
nally, as one of the most eminent of his generation.

The man who will always without the slightest doubt be
named as the most remarkable man of this generation is
Willumsen. Starting as an architect, he became a painter,

378.

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Jotunheimen, by J. F. Willumsen

then a ceramic artist, and later still showed that it was per-
haps as a sculptor he could best find an outlet for the full
force of his artistic nature. In Paris in the early nineties,
under the influence of various kinds of modern impression-
istic and symbolistic French art, he burned all the bridges
that connected him with his own past and the past of Den-
mark. He attached himself for a time to Raffaelli, a little
later to Gauguin,. but he shook off their influence, too, and
when he made his first appearance at the Free Exhibition
with a long series of his works and scandalized the whole
capital, he was unquestionably the most individual phenom-
enon that had ever manifested itself in our art. What
made people especially angry was his pretention to pro-
fundity. He was not profound, and he has not become so
since. But it was to the advantage of his artistic form that
he himself attributed to even the most elementary of his
thoughts on existence an exceedingly deep significance. This
encouraged him to feel that he was at a respectful distance
from everyday life, which, seen at such distance, grew be-
fore his wondering gaze, and passed into his art in propor-
tions greater than the actual. His art was founded on
this attitude of respect and aloofness, instead of on a rela-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 379

tion between artist and subject of affection so warm that
it rapidly communicates itself to the beholder and makes
him also feel an affection for the work of art; the conse-
quence is that everything that came from his hand — far
from being ingratiating — was singularly unapproachable
and impervious to feeling. Nor did it carry any very vital
message; it was not, as we have said, especially profound.
Yet it often appealed to the imagination in somewhat the
same manner as the art of the earliest times. It succeeded
in this because there really was in his character something
of the primitive man's awe for the mystery of nature and of
existence. What Willumsen's work then had, and to a
certain extent still has, in common with the very oldest art,
is not limited to the conventions, but is something of its
actual spirit, wrung by perplexity under the moral pressure
of the mystery of existence, and using art to relieve itself
of that pressure by throwing off mighty forms. For this
purpose art requires, among other things, a pair of power-
ful hands that can
lay hold of such
forms and carry
them over intact,
strong and whole,
from the imagina-
tion to the work of
art. Such a pair of
hands — a pair of
fists, one is tempted
to say — is just what
Willumsen has.

Strictly speaking,
the manly energy of
his hands, which is
the foundation of
the manly forceful-
ness of his treat-
ment of form, is

perhaps his Only The Mountain-climber, by J. F. Willumsen

380 SCANDINAVIAN ART

fully-developed faculty as a painter. His coloring is often
crude and hard — he is least of all a colorist; his brushwork
has nothing that can be called execution, and serves exclu-
sively to fix his forms to the canvas with few and often rather
brutal strokes. He has done finished work only in fields
other than painting — for instance, in architecture, the build-
ing for the Free Exhibition; in sculpture, a few large busts
and the memorial to his parents; in handicraft, a cinerary
urn and other ceramics. In actual painting, it is among his
sketches rather than among his more pretentious work that
we find complete successes, and among the water-color
sketches rather than among those in oil.

Unquestionably he has been of great importance in the
recent and especially in the very most recent developments
of Danish art. The faith that he has long cherished in the
possibility of finding artistic expression for philosophical
thoughts and subjective emotions in the use of abstract lines
has undoubtedly led several of the younger draughtsmen
even further into that fatal tendency. Apart from this,
however, he has exercised a very decidedly wholesome and
stimulating influence. In the first place, he has had a moral
influence, because more than any one else he defied and
finally bore down the opposition of the multitude, thereby
challenging others'to do likewise and scorn the temptation
to make terms with the public. He has also had an artistic
influence, because by the energy of his treatment of form,
whether in painting or sculpture, he has set a much needed
example to others. It would be hard, for instance, to think
of Ejnar Nielsen without Willumsen as a predecessor and
a presupposition. It has been correctly said of this artist
that it is not the shadows of life with which he has chiefly
occupied himself, but the coalblack night of life. Death,
directly represented by the corpse, is by no means the most
dreadful thing Ejnar Nielsen has forced us to contemplate;
he has mercilessly brought us face to face with what is more
frightful than death: the incomplete destruction that is the
fate of those who linger on though paralyzed, crippled, or
suffering from incurable disease. When the victims of his

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 381

Portrait Group, by Ejnar Nielsen

fantasies of the hospital or the charnel house have not
lain swathed in winding-sheets or sentenced to a miserable
bed, they have travelled in rags that made the thought of
their existence even more harrowing. The effect of these
uncompromising creations would have been merely loath-
some, and one would have hastily turned one's back on them,
had not the artist been master of more than one of the
means that enable art to expiate ugliness. The pictorial

382 SCANDINAVIAN ART

was one of these means; the pictures were painted in a
few grey tones, delicately and tastefully harmonized. But
it was the drawing that did most in mitigation, for it was
the drawing that raised them toward the monumental. The
most beautiful exemplification, however, of this artist's
monumental style is in a few pictures in which the painter of
horrors disclosed a surprising feeling for human beauty and
for beautiful human sentiments, first in a portrait, larger
than life, of a young sculptor and his female model on a
balcony overlooking the roofs of Paris (1901), later in a
larger group and in several individual portraits, among
others, one of Ellen Key. That Ejnar Nielsen's spirit is
not always tortured by infernal visions is also proved by
a few flower-paintings from his hand. Yet he easily reverts
to his morbid specialty, as he has recently, for instance, in a
Job which in its horribly shameless nakedness gave new
proof of his curiously surcharged imagination, but also a
new evidence of his masterly talent for a kind of monu-
mental painting which unfortunately he has not yet been
given opportunity to exercise.

It is not possible to name any more contributions of per-
sonal energy, such as Willumsen's and Ejnar Nielsen's, to
the development of a great monumental form in the midst
of the intimate painting of Denmark; for unfortunately
Hartmann died while he was still young and immature, and
he was the only other man of whom anything of the kind
might have been expected. There was a touch of Dela-
croix in his attempts at very dramatic pictures, and he was in
general possessed of very great talent. On the other hand,
several artists may be pointed out who have endeavored
to change and improve the aspect of Danish art partly by
the direct importation of the elevated style of earlier times.
Thus Fru Bertha Dorph, with her sure sense of plastic form,
soon adapted herself to the severe and restricted formulae
of portrait painting devised by Domenico Veneziano, the
teacher of Piero della Francesca, and other fifteenth cen-
tury Italians. Earlier still Clement — after he had aban-
doned his youthful endeavors to follow the most recent

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 383

Portrait of the Artist's Father, by Ludvig Find

French styles — had painted portraits based on similar for-
mulae, though he tried at the same time to preserve some-
thing like the minute study of detail of Roed and Ver-
mehren. His portraits, however, belong to a stage which
this rather variable painter has long since left behind him.
He now paints chiefly women and children, in pictures which
are a little vague in characterization but pleasing in color,
though sometimes a trifle flowery. A man who has finally
become a more genuine painter is Find, who after inclining
first toward the old Danish bourgeois-democratic and then
toward the modern French artistic-aristocratic tendency,
finally attached himself to the latter, and under Bonnard

384

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Figure Group, by Sigurd Wandel

and Vuillard developed a bright, clean palette and a fresh
technique, especially noticeable in his pictures of children, of
which he seems successfully to be making his specialty.
Schouboe occupies rather an unusual position on account of
his choice of subjects: he is one of the few Danish artists
of talent who has taken up the study of the youthful nude
in the sunshine of springtime, and in his treatment of this
theme he has shown a fine feeling for harmony and grace
of line. An artist -who has consistently endeavored to con-
fine his portrayal of humanity within controlled and sober
outlines is Vedel ; his weakness is working out color schemes
a little too elaborately after the manner of the old masters,
but in spite of this the movement in his portraits is free and
unhampered by the style he cultivates. Very much the same
may be said of Tetens, of Tycho Jessen, and especially of
Wandel, who of the three is much the most important. At
first, Wandel also showed a desire to surround the person-
ages in his portraits with the rigid ceremonial of style, but,
for all his intentions, life got the better of him, and he seems

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 385

Landscape, by Svend Hammershoi

finally to have abandoned his pretension to style in order
to give himself over to greater delight in painting his chil-
dren or their mother or merely his fellow-men just as he
sees them and loves them in everyday existence. The re-
quirements of style have been most stubbornly upheld by two
landscape painters, Svend Hammershoi and Mohl; each in
his own way treats nature decoratively, using large mass
effects and big, sweeping lines.

Both these artists engage in handicraft as well as paint-
ing. Hammershoi is successful as a designer of ceramics
and silverware, Mohl no less successful with embroidery and
tapestry. It is a significant fact that almost all the artists
we have so far mentioned in this chapter on the quest of style
in recent Danish painting have concerned themselves with
one or more of the decorative arts. The decorative has
gained a leading position in the interest of all of them. This
would certainly have been dangerous to the fresh study of
nature, which must always remain the source of all art, espe-

386

SCANDINAVIAN ART

daily of painting, if Denmark had not been a place where no
movement ever runs its full course. Every action, in critical
and temperate Denmark, brings a reaction on its heels, and
thus the quest of style was accompanied by a counter-tend-
ency from the very moment, one might say, that it got
started in earnest. To this reaction something was perhaps
contributed by the retrospect of old Danish art afforded by
the Copenhagen Art Society's inclusive exhibitions and pub-
lications dealing with the old Danish masters. These made
it easy to see how much had been lost, and how little had
been gained. The greatest gain, it appeared, was a certain
festive quality of style — the most serious loss simplicity of
mind. A few young provincial artists, pupils of Zahrtmann,
then began to receive a great deal of attention, because they
had not merely preserved that precious quality to an excep-
tional degree, but had made it tell in their painting, thanks

Hunting Wild Ducks, by Johannes Larsen

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 387

Dante and Beatrice in Paradise, by Poul Christiansen

to the demonstratively frank manner that was all their own.
One member of this group is the flower painter Harald
Holm, who is not meticulous in his choice of flowers, but, in
his fresh and confident way, takes them wherever he finds
them in the greatest possible profusion and splendor. An-
other member of the group is Johannes Larsen, who has the
unsophisticated attitude of a hunter toward the living things
in nature, and paints wild birds with vigorous characteriza-
tion and unaffected coloring. A third member is Poul
Christiansen, an able landscape painter, who boldly defies
his rustic heaviness of hand and inspires great respect for
his courage, even when he aims his somewhat awkward
flight at lofty subjects — from the Bible, for instance, or from

388

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Country Road at Karise, by Poul Christiansen

Dante's poems. The others, Karl Schou, Peter Hansen,
and especially Syberg, the central figure of the group, stay
close to the earth, and their strength is their capacity for
perceiving with all their senses what belongs to earth and
to reality. Schou re a painter of interiors and of landscapes,
and in both fields he has carried the study of atmosphere to
the last degree of refinement. Peter Hansen, who paints
landscapes and figures, is a rather commonplace observer,
but there is something engaging in his honesty and his dex-
terity. The one who is most typical of the group's new,
strong naturalism is Syberg, who sets forth the earth and
reality with a peasant's robust indifference to whether the
impressions of his senses are beautiful or not. He breathes
the stench of a pigsty, the exhalations of a nursery, the fresh-
ness of newly turned sod, or the perfume of a blossoming
fruit-tree with the same sense of physical satisfaction, and
expects those who look at his pictures to do the same. He
attaches importance to the strength, not the delicacy, of
colors, and is never afraid of showing things as they are.

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 389

On the Ice at Faaborg, by Peter Hansen

He prefers to be and to remain as he is — if not exactly
clumsy, at least heavy and hard-handed in execution, rather
than be tempted by a fluent touch to become superficial. In
his strong and primitive media (frequently ink and water-
color) he often attains what he aims at: a presentation full
of feeling and character, free from the insipidity which often
accompanies over-refinement.

Such is the bulwark on that side — a sound naturalism,
which although broader and simpler in its point of view
than that of the old Danish masters, is closely related to
theirs, and in its own way is no less Danish. One may say
that from Eckersberg to Syberg there was, on the whole,
an unbroken continuity in Danish art. As a rule it accepted
only what could be reconciled with its moderate Danish
temper; even Danish poster art, such as the work of the
talented and, for that matter, strongly Europeanized
draughtsman Valdemar Andersen, is recognizable in many
ways as intended for Copenhagen and not for Paris or
London. Toward Paris all artistic eyes in Denmark were
once more turned. Great and noteworthy artists had again
made their appearance there. Yet the effect of impression-
ism on Danish art was so slight that all one can accurately

390.

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Spring, by Fritz Syberg

say is that it was not without influence, and no more can be
said for the effect of synthesism. The extreme representa-
tives of this tendency were recognized and appreciated in
Denmark even earlier than in France itself, but they were
not imitated. For in their time art was still individual
property, and there was no glory in appropriating it. Re-
cently, as we know, it has been otherwise. Appealing to
the example of Cezanne, van Gogh, and Gauguin and de-
claring that everything depended on accepting the last and
utmost consequences of their view, certain artists in France
at the very beginning of the new century undertook to break
away from the thousand-year-old traditions of art. Paint-
ing, despite all differences of opinion about it and about all
its manifold forms and aims, had invariably been looked on
hitherto as the reflection of the outer world in the eyes of an
artist, who was free to look upon it as he could and as he
would. All sorts of new theories now arose, according to
which art should be something independent of nature, some-
thing decorative and suggestive, with the sovereign right
of transforming nature into something completely unrecog-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 391

nizable. What might have been conceded as an endurable
and permissible privilege to some one great artist, was
exalted — or rather debased — to a privilege for any and
every upstart painter. "Expressionism" was the name of
the privilege, Matisse was the grand initiator of the world
into its secrets — until the headlong development passed over
him, too, and Picasso and his cubism attained an even more
suddenly acquired reputation.

All over the world this movement found throngs of sup-
porters. In all the exhibitions one met them, and as they
were more anxious to adhere to the method than to stand
on their own legs as artists, they were pretty much alike,
whether French or Russian, German or Swedish. The
movement appeared in Denmark, also, but here, in accord-
ance with the custom of the country, it took a far more
moderate form than elsewhere. In this little country it was
perhaps easier than in a big country to maintain a judicial
attitude, to distinguish real talent and ability from the mere
use of the convenient, almost exclusively coloristic, formulae
which the new school had adopted for the purpose of con-
cealing a lack of capacity or a lack of training and study.
In any case it is still too soon to pass judgment in a historical
survey such as this on the young Danish artists who have
attached themselves more or less intimately to the most
recent tendencies in painting. Swane, Naur, Rude, Scharff,
Giersing, Weie, Salto, are the names of a few of them.
They are not too intolerant to associate amicably in the
Exhibition in Gronningen, the latest secession in the annals
of Copenhagen art exhibitions, with Syberg and a few of
his group as well as with such neutrals as these : Knud Kyhn,
who is an able and fresh observer of wild bird life; Viggo
Madsen, who has a nice talent for interiors; Rostrup Boye-
sen, who has the merit, among others, of having discovered
possibilities of picturesque beauty in such apparently ugly
places as the new tenement districts in the outskirts of the
Danish capital; Aksel Jorgensen, in whom there is likely
material for a forcible — if anything too forcible — delineator
of the tame night-life of Copenhagen; Niels Hansen, who

392 SCANDINAVIAN ART

still stands by Manet and in his spirit paints portraits which
show rapid characterization. It must, of course, be left to
the future finally and correctly to judge painters like these,
who are still young and, in some cases, still undeveloped.

Such is the Danish painting of the moment, distributed
every spring among two or three different exhibitions, yet
not difficult to combine into a single impression. Despite
the recent movements in foreign directions, it has persistently
shown its national temper. It has recognized restrictions
which are mainly the result of the limitations of the passion-
less Danish temperament. It has perhaps shown its Danish
nature most definitely on the negative side of the sober,
critical Danish character, with its sensitive instinct for shun-
ning the ridiculous under all circumstances. There has
always been very little of the ridiculous in Danish painting.
Unfortunately, there was usually a lack of the sublime as
well. Was it dread of the ridiculous that was to blame for
the rarity in Denmark of approaches to the sublime? Not
entirely. Only genius attains the sublime, and Danish paint-
ing has always been as lacking in genius as it has been rich
in first rate talent. This more moderate degree of artistic
endowment combined with the moderate Danish character
to impose limits on Danish painting. In the narrowness of
these limits lies the weakness of Danish painting; but at
least it has always known its own limits. Hence its inherent
truthfulness, and hence, again, its strength.

IX
SCULPTURE

IN THE course of the nineteenth century several Swedish
painters and one or two Norwegians had emigrated, and
thanks to their accomplishments, had exercised a definite,
though slight, influence in one or another of the foreign
art centers. There was no opportunity for Danes to exer-
cise any such influence, because, as we have seen, they clung
too closely to their native land. On the other hand the great
Danish sculptor, Thorvaldsen, made a greater contribution
to the artistic history of the world than all other Scandina-
vians together.

The story of this neglected child of the proletariat, de-
scribed by a contemporary as late as his twenty-seventh year
as "a lazy hound," who, once transplanted to classical soil
and exposed in the capital of the artistic world to intellectual
influences from all directions and from all periods, ripened
and mellowed like the fruit of the vine, will always remain a
marvel. It was not really quite so unaccountable as it ap-
pears. When he arrived in Rome in 1797, he unquestion-
ably had already received more artistic cultivation than is
usually realized, for the soil, or, if one prefers, the academy,
from which he came, was by no means deficient in such
cultivation. The same Copenhagen soil had already pro-
duced Trippel and Carstens. Abildgaard and Wiedewelt
had been teaching there. Abildgaard was one of the most
thorough, learned, and conscientious painters in Europe at
that period ; Wiedewelt was one of the most zealous of those
who were working to emancipate art from the prevailing
French style and encourage the taste for the antique. The
artistic atmosphere which they breathed in the Danish cap-

393

394 SCANDINAVIAN ART

ital was of greater significance, not only to Thorvaldsen but
to Trippel and Carstens, than is usually realized. It was
of greater importance to Thorvaldsen than to the others;
whereas Carstens — not to mention Trippel — had been
affected by all kinds of powerful influences from Germany
before he went to Rome, Thorvaldsen was more exclusively
the product of Copenhagen and Rome. He went straight
to ancient Italy by way of Gibraltar, thereby escaping Ger-
man rococo, North Italian Renaissance, and all the other
conflicting impressions which he would have received if he
had travelled overland. He arrived in Rome in time to
find Carstens still living; and in Zoega he became acquainted
with a disciple of Winckelmann; from the former he ex-
tracted the quintessence of understanding of the antique,
and from the latter of knowledge of the antique, without
himself drawing a line or reading a book. He moreover
had the advantage of finding the situation, from the point of
view of the history of art, arranged and prepared for his
coming. The struggle against the old style, the rococo, had
ended in victory for the new classicism, antique in spirit, in
so far as it had gained a foothold in all countries and in all
fields of art. Yet it was plainly evident that the dreams of
that generation of a rebirth of Greek art had not yet been
realized in the wcyks of Mengs or Battoni, of Angelica
Kaufmann or David, of Carstens or Flaxman. It was for
the most part a dream devoid of color, a dream of a world
in marble, and it seemed vain to expect its fulfilment of
painters such as these — or of artists who drew in outline, like
the two last-named. Only a sculptor could yield the period
what it longed for. It was a sculptor, the great Canova,
who satisfied the period until a greater still, Thorvaldsen,
came with his creations of a purer clay. One of the impuri-
ties in Canova's classicism was the over-refined, saccharine
form, a morbidezza recalling Bernini; another unclassical
element was the lingering Southern sensuality; a third was
his propensity for the languishing and sentimental; a fourth,
the Italian virtuosity of his touch. From all these Thorvald-
sen kept himself free. As the latest to follow the dream-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 395

Jason, by Thorvaldsen

path to distant Hellas, he had everything in his favor. The
shipwrecks of his predecessors marked for him the reefs he
must avoid. He was quietly occupied during his first years
in Rome, looking over the situation and adapting himself to
it. He was really master of the situation when, in 1802,
he began work for the second time, after he had smashed
his first model in a moment of despondency, upon his Jason.

396 SCANDINAVIAN ART

The halls and alcoves of his museum in Copenhagen con-
tain nearly 200 statues or projects for statues, 130 busts, and
330 reliefs (including three large slabs), in all about 650
works, or several thousand figures, from his hand. The
first impression one receives there is of tremendous creative
power. The next impression is one of bewilderment at the
prodigious range that he covers: The Life of the Gods,
The Life and Acts of Cupid, The Lives of the Heroes, The
Bible and Christian Allegory, Portrait Statues and Busts —
all these are categories of the work he left to posterity. One
soon notices, however, that throughout this vast production
there is only one spirit and one style. This unity depends
less on uniformity than on what is almost the greatest
adaptability any artist has ever shown. His contempo-
raries, who overwhelmed Thorvaldsen with commissions,
credited him, not unjustifiably, with a talent for everything.
He could do everything, after a fashion. After a fashion!
For his adaptability consisted, one should note, not in a
capacity to accommodate his own nature to his task, but in a
capacity to bring each task within the limits of his nature
and put into the accomplishment of it something of his
nature's beauty. His spirit dwelt permanently — hence its
beauty — in a state of deep, unchangeable, almost beatific
peace; Julius Lange, the well known Danish art historian,
has correctly pointed out the fundamental importance of this
mental attitude of Thorvaldsen's in his choice and treatment
of subjects. He represented Heracles as resting between
his labors, Mars as the peace-bringing god of war, Hector
as the husband and father, Achilles as the lover of Briseis
or as the friend of Patrocles — he never showed any of the
blood-drenched heroes of the Iliad in action. He glorified
Napoleon, disturber of the world's peace, as the peacemaker
in his Alexander's Progress. He treated the heroes of the
cycle of wars ended by the Congress of Vienna in this same
peaceful spirit, and similarly he represented Christ, not in
some moment of strife or sorrow, but as the Prince of Peace,
stretching out his arms that all mankind may find refuge in
his bosom. Parallel with his treatment in this spirit of

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 397

Mercury as the Slayer of Argus, by Thorvaldsen

mythology, of the Bible, of history, or of his own contem-
poraries, there runs through all Thorvaldsen's work the long
series of representations of the beneficent powers of peace
and harmony, especially Love, and the Muses, the Graces,
the Genii, which swarmed forth from his fancy whenever he
had a moment of leisure from his greater tasks.

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Day and Night, by Thorvaldsen

There is something monumental in his figures' conformity
to type; but it is not Greek. That "race of blissful seers,
dreamers, and thinkers," as Lange has described the popu-
lation of Thorvaldsen's world, differs from the prouder and
stronger race which ancient art has preserved for us in mar-
ble. Not even in classical painting, which exercised an espe-
cially strong influence on Thorvaldsen, as it was the first
form of art with which he had become acquainted, owing to
the fact that he had arrived in Italy by sea and landed in
Naples — not everj in classical painting does life take on any
such aspect as in Thorvaldsen's work, of happy dolce far
niente, of happy idleness. Even less Greek than the aspect
of life is the aspect of the human body in Thorvaldsen's
work. In the work of Phidias or Praxiteles (to whom the
Danish sculptor was likened by his admiring contempo-
raries) the beauty of the human body depends to a great
extent on something beautifully corporeal, on a physical
warmth, which is lacking in Thorvaldsen's art and must
necessarily be lacking, if only for the reason that it would
never be possible to reproduce the favorable conditions
under which the Greeks were able to cultivate the study of
the nude. This should not, however, be understood as a
confirmation of the too often repeated criticism of Thor-
valdsen's art, that his work is lifeless and cold. Relatively,

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 399

this is true, especially in comparison with the Greek; but
absolutely, it is not true, and it is actually untrue if one com-
pares it with the related art of the same period. Far more
than most of his contemporaries, Thorvaldsen realized the
necessity for the study of nature. Whereas Carstens scorned
the use of models, Thorvaldsen considered the study of
models indispensable, even for masters. Of course one can-
not talk, in his case, of strict and thorough study of nature;
what he did was to allow himself to be inspired by his model,
rather than to attempt to copy his model directly. But,
however inadequate his study of models may have been in
itself, it was sufficient to enable him to keep his lines fresher,
more lifelike, and freer from convention than could those
of his contemporaries whose efforts, like his, were directed
toward beauty of style in figure sculpture. Two often re-
peated anecdotes call attention to some of the fine threads,
otherwise invisible — but by no means imperceptible — by
which the lovely line-spinning of his imagination was con-
nected with his life. One is the story of how his Mercury
owed its existence to the chance that he one day saw a young
Roman sitting in a doorway in an attitude which struck him
as pleasing in its ease and relaxation. The other story,
which is similar, tells how, while he was working on his
Ganymede, he surprised his model, in a moment of rest, in
an attitude which he reproduced literally in his Shepherd
Boy. The fact that these two anecdotes were collected and
preserved as evidence of the importance of living motifs to
his inventive faculty simply goes to show that, as one might
be inclined to infer from the whole character of his work,
his invention was dependent to only a very slight degree on
motifs which he found in actual life. On the other hand,
the two stories also show that he by no means disdained such
ready and available motifs as were offered him by the beau-
tiful Italian populace. With his keen sense of beauty, he
naturally had a keen eye for the wealth of material of this
kind with which he was surrounded and there can be
scarcely any doubt that if one could analyze the conception
of beauty that he developed shortly after his arrival in Italy,

400

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Christ, by Thorvaldsen

one would find many elements of the half-unconscious, fleet-
ing and yet lasting impressions from the same quarter from
which Mercury and the Shepherd Lad found their way into
his art.

What is most characteristic about Thorvaldsen, however,
what is inexplicable, and really a mark of genius, is that his

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 401

conception of beauty will not submit to analysis. Although
in so many respects it was the product of education, it is
insoluble, almost like a product of nature. All that his
genius acquired from outside — the impression of nature and
the impression of the antique — it remodelled in its own
image. All rose together to a higher unity, in a single great
synthesis — his style.

From first to last, his style — omitting unessential shadings
— was unalterably uniform, both in his statues and in his
reliefs. He himself had hardly any other purpose in his art
than to attain the truest possible balance, outwardly and in-
wardly, and that harmony of line which, according to his
contemporaries, constituted the essential excellence of an-
cient art. When his work satisfied him in these respects, he
felt that his own share in them was finished, and he often
left the final execution to his pupils. Usually he put on some
finishing touches with his own hand, but his work in general
lacks the vitalizing breath with which an inspired artist
animates the surface of his work. That is one reason for
the deficiency, which one feels in his figures, of immediately
perceptible subjectivity. His figures, as Lange has pointed
out, give but feeble utterance to subjectivity, because they
are much more strongly inclined to retire within themselves
than to advance toward the spectator as messengers from
their creator's imaginary world. In this modesty, this shy-
ness of theirs, Lange says, — there is "something which in
a striking manner suggests the ancient Greek feeling for
the sacred limitations of human nature, for that bashfulness,
which acts as a guardian of morality and at the same time
gives charm to humanity:" — yet which is not exactly the
same, "because the bearing of the Greek figures is fresher,
more powerful, more energetic."

Thorvaldsen's contemporaries noticed only the similari-
ties, not the discrepancies, between his style and the classical.
That the dreamland whither they saw him borne by his
fancy, which certainly was gleaming with "white marble and
ethereal air" — that this dreamland was Greece, none of
them doubted. They never suspected that it was only a dis-

402 SCANDINAVIAN ART

tant mirage, much less that this mirage, with its distinctively
cool, clear, pure and calm reproduction of antiquity, was
really nothing more than a reflection of Greece on a North-
ern artist's soul. Without any reservation they acclaimed in
Thorvaldsen the rebirth of Hellenism. One need not have
much experience of history to realize that they were neces-
sarily wrong. Obviously a man born at the end of the eight-
eenth century in a Copenhagen lane, with an Icelander for
father and a Jutland girl for mother, could not transform
himself into an ancient Greek. It would have been nothing
less than a subversion of a part of the order of the universe
if such a thing had come to pass, and such a subversion not
even the greatest genius can produce. The mistake is easy
to explain. Though Thorvaldsen was entirely devoid of
higher education and therefore disdained all the require-
ments which the aesthetes of the time exacted of the edu-
cated artist, he none the less appeared to his contempo-
raries to be the fulfilment of their aesthetic theory; if all the
dreams and expectations of the period were fulfilled in him,
it was primarily because what they had been dreaming of
and longing for with glowing passion was not, fundament-
ally, the rebirth of ancient art or of the classical conception
of the human figure, but the rebirth of the actual human
spirit of antiquity. Something of the most primitive and
happy quality of "that spirit, something of its purity and
serenity, something of all that which in Europe generally
life had almost poisoned and erudition had almost cor-
rupted, was brought on the world's artistic stage about 1800
by this youth who had neither read nor lived. It was no
mere accident that he came from an obscure little country.
Only from an out-of-the-way corner of the world, where life
had stood still for centuries, where the primitive spirit of
humanity had been preserved, could an artist have come with
such pristine simplicity as his. Appearing at the opportune
and decisive moment, this was Denmark's most significant
contribution to the culture of the world.

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 403

EST "

If one asks what was Thorvaldsen's significance to the
art of his own country, particularly to Danish sculpture,
there can be no doubt that his great example had a stimu-
lating effect on his younger contemporaries. Such a strong
light, however, must throw deep shadows, in which others
thrive with difficulty; there was one man, especially, who
found this to be the case — Freund.

Although born in Germany (in the neighborhood of
Bremen, in 1786), he subsequently belonged with all his
heart to Denmark, whither he had fled during the war to
avoid being drafted into Napoleon's army. An indication
of his original tendency is the fact that during a stay in
Florence, on his way to Rome, he was seized with an ardent
enthusiasm for Michelangelo, who, as we know, in the first
decade of the nineteenth century was almost universally dis-
paraged. Yet no sooner had he reached Rome than he fell
under the influence of antiquity, as the result of his associa-
tion with Thorvaldsen, who took a liking to the young artist,
but also knew how to make use of him. Despite the pressure
of Thorvaldsen's authority, Freund's personality quickly
found an outlet, as fortunate as it was accidental. A violent
controversy had long been raging in Denmark over "the
suitability of Norse Mythology for artistic representation,"
which had led several members of the Scandinavian literary
fraternity to invite artists to attempt subjects in the Old
Norse spirit. As Freund had taken part in the competi-
tions and had been awarded several prizes, he felt called
upon to go further in the same direction with a frieze in
which he undertook to set forth all the figures and incidents
in the saga of the Norse gods. His friends at home suc-
ceeded in securing for him a commission for such a frieze in
the newly-built Christiansborg; he soon saw, however, that
he must limit himself to the treatment of the Ragnarok
myth, and even this task proved to be so inclusive that he
could complete only certain portions of it with his own
hands, leaving the rest to be executed by others from his
sketches. Unfortunately all the work was destroyed when
the palace was burnt in 1 884, and is known only from a series

404

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Loki, original model, by H. E. Freund

of lithographs. Even from these one can see what a flaming
imagination the young artist had. To be sure, the style of
the frieze is a little uneven, in many places too Greek for
the Norse subjects, in others too baroque for the classical
stamp of the rest. Not without reason the most powerful
parts of this frieze have been compared to the Battle of the
Giants at Pergamos, and here, also, traces have been recog-
nized of the impression that Michelangelo had made on
Freund. Wild pathos interchanges with bold fancy and
delicate charm. Surtr with his flaming sword is gripping,
and so, too, is Thor, swinging his hammer. Most impressive
of all, perhaps, is the wily Loki, wearing the winged cloak
of the bat, with whispered words on his lips, a figure which
Freund had already produced as a statuette, before he
carved the relief; in that form it has remained his most
popular work in Denmark.

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 405

The Goddess of Fate, by H. E. Freund

Unfortunately his powers were not utilized to the extent
they deserved. He had, for instance, the possibilities of a
great portrait sculptor, but he rarely received commissions
for busts. He had to devote most of his time to grave-
stones, which he frequently decorated with ingenious bas-
reliefs. His relief style appears to great advantage in the
representation of the mysteriously veiled Goddess of Fate
scanning her book, and in the noble figure of a mourning
woman on the medal commemorating the death of Frederik
VI. Even in such works as these something appears of the
dark and deep, dolorous and dreamy strain, which was the
basic element in Freund's imaginative existence. His imagi-

406 SCANDINAVIAN ART

nation, however, had practically exhausted itself in the Rag-
narok frieze; at any rate, after his return from Italy he
turned more and more toward strict classicism, and in his
later years he stood in the estimation of the younger genera-
tion as its confirmed representative. To this view of his per-
sonality the house that he fitted out for himself in Copen-
hagen was largely responsible : not only the interior decora-
tion but the furniture and fixtures were carried out in the
Pompeian style by young artists working from Freund's
drawing. It was here that Hilker had his first experience as
a decorative painter, here, too, Kobke and Constantin Han-
sen— to the detriment of the first, but to the profit of the
second — acquired even before their journey to Rome more
plastic sense and more sense of style than they had learned
from Eckersberg. Thus in the course of a few years (until
his all too early death in 1840) Freund set his stamp on the
development of Danish art. Yet leaving out of considera-
tion two medallists, Christensen and Conradsen, trained
under his supervision, he exercised his influence more
through his taste than through his work, which perhaps owed
its best features, its poetic depth of feeling and its virile
energy of expression, to his German origin; certainly it
never found in Denmark the understanding it merited.

Jerichau was another artist whose importance did not
correspond to his endowments, although for a moment his
Panther-hunter seemed about to win him a European repu-
tation. His imagination was not strong, and not very origi-
nal, but he was a master of form such as there has not been
before or since in Danish plastic art. He spoke the truth
when he proudly declared that in his Panther-hunter he had
produced the most accomplished piece of sculpture of the
period, because that great achievement of his life did em-
body an energetic naturalism which was far in advance of the
time. As a pupil of Freund and a sincere admirer of Thor-
valdsen, he, too, was profoundly influenced by antiquity, but
he combined with his enthusiasm for the accepted generali-
ties of classical art a keen appreciation of nature. On the
other hand, in much of his work there was an element of

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 407

The Panther-hunter, by J. A. Jerichau

sobriety, but there was also much formal beauty of a very
superior quality. Especially notable was his representation
af animals, and of women. His representation of women
was coldly chaste; how much self-restraint such an attitude
toward womanhood must have cost him, considering his
emphatically erotic temperament, is indicated by a sketch

408 SCANDINAVIAN ART

of Leda from his hand, in which he entirely let himself go
and showed warmer passion than anywhere else in his
usually rather untemperamental work.

If Fortune looked askance at Freund and Jerichau, she
smiled on a younger friend and colleague of Freund's, H. V.
Bissen, who, especially after the death of Thorvaldsen, be-
came the preeminent sculptor of Denmark, and left a pro-
duction almost as extensive as his master's. Merely between
1835 and 1 841, he supplied the Knights' Hall at Christians-
borg with a frieze 260 feet long, with more than 200 figures,
representing the triumphal procession of Bacchus and Ceres,
and, besides, sketched eighteen female figures for statues of
saga heroines and Danish queens for a stairway at the same
place. During a sojourn in Rome he had attracted Thor-
valdsen's attention and won his confidence to such an extent
that the master entrusted to him the execution of the Guten-
berg monument at Mainz, and later designated him as his
artistic executor, in which capacity he inherited several big
commissions and directed the reproduction in marble of
Thorvaldsen's works. Naturally, collaboration with his
great teacher and close association with his spirit left traces
in Bissen's work; a whole series of the idyllic sketches of his
youth, with or without mythological titles, reveal plainly
enough the influence under which they were produced. Yet
even figures such as these show something which stands to
Bissen's own account, and other works from his hand prove
that in character he was very different from Thorvaldsen.
He chose from Greek mythology such figures as the angry
Achilles, or the Furies pursuing Orestes, or Filoctetes on
Lemnos, and in such figures he showed a pathos which gave
promise of great dramatic possibilities. The circumstances
of his private life, however, especially political considera-
tions, soon led him in a different direction. A native of
Slesvig, he felt himself even more strongly affected than
most by the quarrel between Germany and Denmark, and
impelled by the national awakening and by Hoyen's preach-
ing of the doctrine of national art, Bissen now diverted his
attention from the remote ideas which had heretofore pos-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 409

Achilles, by H. V. Bissen

sessed his imagination in order to affiliate himself with the
nationalist movement. His vital contribution to this was
the monument commemorating the victory at Fredericia. In
the competition for this, his rival was Jerichau, who chose
the god Thor as the symbol of the power of the Danish
people. Bissen, on the contrary, chose the actual hero of the
victory, the common soldier of Denmark. This Landsoldat,
planting his foot on a captured mortar, waving a beech-
bough, and uttering with all his lungs a "Hurrah" for Den-
mark, marks a turning-point in Danish sculpture like that
marked in Danish painting by the pictures of Dalsgaard
and Vermehren. Here was the simple man of the people
taken as a plastic motif and presented to the public for
approval as such; here everything was conceded to living
reality, nothing to the abstract ideal.

410

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Soldiers' Monument at Fredericia, by H. V.
Bissen

Bissen, in consequence, now exploited the breach with
tradition that he had thus opened. He had previously been
such a faithful adherent of tradition that he had, for in-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 411

stance, represented Orsted in classical drapery. Henceforth
in all the monuments he designed he adopted modern dress,
and this change in itself introduced a new simplicity into
the spirit of his art. It would take too long to enumerate
all the full length statues that emanated from his atelier
between 1850 and his death in 1868. Among the best known
are the statue of Frederik VI, the equestrian statue of Fred-
erik VII, and further memorials to H. C. Orsted and Oehlen-
schlager; among the best — besides the statue of Frederik
VI already mentioned — are the statues of the actress Fru
Heiberg and of the artist's own wife. This last, especially,
has an intimacy of treatment which one could not reasonably
expect to find in the numerous official tasks that were as-
signed to Bissen. The intimate quality of this statue is not,
however, entirely unparalleled in his other works, particu-
larly in his almost interminable series of busts. He made
it a point to preserve portraits of the many prominent men
with whom he had come in contact in the course of his long
career, and it was especially in these busts, which he carved
not to order but con amove, that he showed a far keener
eye for essentials of character than his master had possessed,
although in other respects he attached no greater impor-
tance to finish than did the master. In this feature his work,
especially in his later years, was really deficient. The dem-
ocratic spirit of the new era not only diverted Bissen from
the dramatic strain in which he worked with so much
promise in his earlier years, but it detracted from the formal
quality of his work, because it demanded of him wholesale
and hasty production, which did not leave him time and quiet
for careful execution. For this reason, to many people
nowadays he appears at his best in his excellent sketches,
of which the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek in Copenhagen has
made a fine collection.

In his atelier, which was the scene of livelier activity than
any later Danish sculptor's, most of the following generation
got their training. Here in the late thirties and early forties
were gathered such artists as Peters and Hertzog, Stein and
Saabye, all of whom attained a great age and carried down

412

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Girl Painting a Crock, by Vilhelm Bissen

to the end of the century the traditions of the period of
Thorvaldsen and Bissen. Of these, certainly the most bril-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 413

liant was Hertzog; his independent activity was prema-
turely interrupted by a great work of restoration, the sar-
cophagus of Queen Margrethe in Roskilde Cathedral; but
a large number of little drawings bear witness to his gift
for plastic composition. Peters had a great deal of life
and humor. His best works are a few statuettes, The
Dancing Faun, Diogenes, Ahasuerus, and Peter Willemoes;
his larger works are not of correspondingly high merit. He
also maintained a keen interest in handicraft, and contrib-
uted to its promotion a series of designs which, although
they do not disclose any great original talent for this kind of
work, show delicacy and artistic refinement. Stein was
more successful than some of the men we have been discuss-
ing in securing commissions; he had a more robust talent,
and also a less tender artistic conscience. Saabye was more
sympathetic, for he was more genuinely childlike in feeling,
and at the same time he was a clever workman in both
bronze and marble. Other members of this group of pupils
of H. V. Bissen were Evens and Vilhelm Bissen, the master's
son, who was rather younger than the rest of the group.
Unlike the others, he was somewhat influenced by the more
modern French sculptors such as Dubois, but he was essen-
tially a follower of his father's. He found wider scope for
his activities than anyone since his father's time. He did not
have H. V. Bissen's exuberant creative power, but on the
other hand his treatment of form was finer and more highly
developed, although it frequently suffered from a certain
meagerness and lack of freshness. He did his best work in
a series of carvings of animals and in a few genre pieces
like A Horseman and Girl Painting a Crock. This last
figure, especially, brought him great popularity. It is an
unusually pure and unusually pretty example of the delicate
and finished but somewhat timid and often slightly weari-
some type of sculpture that became prevalent in Denmark
after the period of Thorvaldsen and the elder Bissen.

The individuals who did not conform to this tendency
were not numerous, and they were not at all hardy. Hassel-
riis, who showed marked talent for historic portraiture in

414

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Bust of Fru Hirschsprung, by Ludvig
Brandstrup

his statues of Ewald and Kierkegaard, became only slightly
emancipated from his native school, despite his long resi-
dence abroad. Schultz, in his group Adam and Eve, showed
an inclination to escape from the ranks and follow the more
general European development, but he soon weakened and,
on the whole, like his contemporaries, Aarsleff, Jorgen
Larsen, and Axel Hansen, he placed himself firmly on the
old Danish basis. A considerable sensation was caused in
artistic circles in the middle of the eighties by Kroyer's first
portrait busts, in which the treatment — as one might expect
from the great painter — was to a large extent founded on
the pictorial effect of light and shade. This example, how-
ever, found no imitators, and generally speaking, sculpture
has not participated in any movements such as those that
brought about the complete liberation of painting. At the
present moment there is nothing which may be called a new
school in Danish plastic art, but there is a group of able

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 415

sculptors like Pedersen-Dan, Mortensen, Erichsen, Sondrup,
Bundgaard, Bonnesen, Baerentzen, and so on, and outside
of this circle there are several individuals who may claim
separate consideration. One of these is Brandstrup, to
whom we owe the fine monument to Zoega in Copenhagen;
he has distinguished himself by a series of portrait busts,
unsurpassed in Danish art for thorough plastic study and
skillful handling of the surface of the marble. There is Fru
Anne Marie Carl Nielsen, an acute observer of animal life,
especially of domestic animals. There is Jarl, who shows
French influence, an artist with a genuine plastic gift, espe-
cially for the treatment of single figures. Rudolph Tegner,
on the contrary, has not the true plastic talent; his otherwise
laudable efforts on a titanic scale, for example his monument
to Finsen, lack the solid foundation of study, and, besides,
his work is often surprisingly deficient in taste. Nor is Han-
sen-Jacobsen a real plastic artist, but it cannot be denied that
he is a notable artistic personality because of his pathos.
Far from permitting himself to rest content with the inof-
fensive and ineffective figures with which Danish sculpture
too often has been satisfied, he has frequently attempted to
give plastic expression to such difficult subjects as the powers
of darkness, demons, and nightmares. To this end, he has
frequently made use of intaglio, which naturally deprived
his forms of all substance. Such a paradoxical, plastic-
unplastic, treatment was perhaps appropriate to a paradox

The Shadow, by Niels Hansen-Jacobsen

416 SCANDINAVIAN ART

like the statue in
f 7/* s which he represented

*. .. the most incorporeal

i S- of subjects, The

I : i Shadow. But in

i • , * other larger works

I Hansen - Jacobsen's

L method has inevita-

bly failed. The big
HI scale, which for vari-

"y ous reasons he does

not master, is on the
whole unsuited to his
bold fancy. His pa-
thos finds its best
expression in a set of
very small statuettes
such as Lady Mac-
i beth, and The Da-
naids, which he has
executed in earthen-
ware— for he is a

distinguished ce-

^am^—^^.^:.- ,-_ - - __,} ramie artist.

... • , . iU #. . '4, _. ' , , What true monu-

Memonal to the Artists Father and

Mother, by J. F. Willumsen mental quality in

sculpture really
means was first demonstrated among the younger men, sig-
nificantly enough, by two of the painters who were among the
leaders in the quest for style : by Niels Skovgaard, in his mon-
ument on Lyrskov Heath; by Willumsen, in a few colossal
heads in glazed clay, and in the memorial to his parents men-
tioned above. Wagner is a pupil of Willumsen's; by means
of busts, tombstones, and garden statuary he has gradually
worked his way up until he has become a very able artist and
a thoroughly excellent craftsman, familiar, so to speak, with
every material, and understanding how to evoke from each
its inherent beauty. His wife, Fru Olga Wagner, has
acquired from him the same technical knowledge; but she

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 417

is, in addition, an independent artist with a capacity, uncom-
mon among women, for carrying her work through to com-
pletion. Both of these industrious artists have had a notice-
able influence in the improvement of the technique of Danish
sculpture, which had previously been extraordinarily unpro-
gressive in the matter of choice and treatment of material.
In this respect, the most talented of recent Danish sculptors,
Kai Nielsen, is indebted to the Wagners. He is, however,
individual and independent, and his strength lies in the
almost impudent way that he uses models and motifs which
no one before him had considered appropriate for plastic
treatment. His art is a creed that proclaims a delight in the
female body — even the very heavy-haunched female body —
and proclaims it with a boldness that often approaches flip-
pancy. But he is a born plastic artist, whom one is forced to
forgive almost anything, because he succeeds in combining
everything into effective lines and masses. He understands
peculiarly well the art of preserving his block effect, avoiding
anything piercing through the mass which might make his

Group Picture from an Exhibition of Kai Nielsen's Works

418 SCANDINAVIAN ART

composition seem discontinuous and restless. His style
therefore has a certain compactness, but also at times a cer-
tain clumsiness; this conscious gaucherie, which further ap-
pears in the primitive, half-Malay peasant type which he
usually employs, constitutes a danger to his uncommonly
vigorous talent.

A similar gaucherie and a similar partiality for a primi-
tive peasant type, appear in Bjerg's bronze, The Abyssinian,
so far the only important work by this artist, who is still very
young. Yet his style is entirely different: his ideal is exces-
sive thinness, instead of fleshiness. Jean Gauguin shows
a great deal of humor in his boisterous little bronze statu-
ettes of human figures, and of grace in his representations
of animals. Jens Lund is earnest and austere, and a little
jejeune in his form; he is one of the many who prefer to
work in granite. The predilections of the younger men are
divided between granite and bronze. In recent years bronze
has been successfully treated with artificial patina. A master
of this art is Thylstrup, who began with charming mountings
in the ware of the Royal Copenhagen porcelain, and later
turned to small figures in his own elegant, precieux jeweler's
style, which is quite as well adapted to bronze as to the porce-
lain for which he originally developed it. Closely related to
him in various ways is Utzon-Franck, who has shown consid-
erable skill in adopting the early Renaissance style, with per-
haps an inclination to follow it rather too closely. He also
is a distinguished worker in bronze, whose productions, at
least in decorative effect, are delicate and tasteful.

Thus the latest Danish sculptors, through their under-
standing of the possibilities of plastic materials, seem to be
on their way toward the attainment of a truly plastic style,
such as Danish sculpture might have attained earlier, if it
had not too often been doomed to remain in plaster. Con-
sidering the fact that for so many years it was only to a very
slight degree the object of private initiative; that it was
produced mostly in fulfilment of public commissions, or else
with the most anxious regard for public requirements; that
it was a passion to only very few people in the country, a

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 419

luxury to many, and a matter of indifference to the majority;
that it was treated in a stepmotherly fashion, always sub-
ordinated to painting — it seems quite natural that, in gen-
eral, its expression of life should have been decidedly and
noticeably languid. But recently the conditions seem to have
improved, and therefore we may venture to believe that it
will have a brighter future.

ARCHITECTURE

THE architecture, like the sculpture, of Denmark in the
nineteenth century was hampered by the restricted con-
ditions of the country and by the lack of appreciation
of its significance. In the newer quarters of Copenhagen
there are, indeed, a few buildings which prove that the
country has not at any time been entirely devoid of good
architecture, but these buildings are too few and too scat-
tered to give any general artistic character to modern Copen-
hagen. Such character as the city has it owes chiefly to
earlier times, especially to the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries; a number of buildings of this period are still
preserved, despite the catastrophes — the last of these be-
ing the English bombardment in 1807 — from which the
capital has suffered.

Like painting and sculpture, architecture in Denmark
had behind it, strictly speaking, no real national tradition.
The granite and tufa Romanesque churches of Jutland were
built after models in the Rhine district of Germany; the
somewhat later brick churches of Sjaelland partly after
French models, partly after models from the German Bal-
tic region. Of the Gothic churches in the country, some of
the most striking are adaptions of the German Hallenkirche.
When the Renaissance reached Denmark, simultaneously
with the Reformation, the relationship to foreign countries
was to a certain extent modified; after that it was chiefly
from northwestern Germany and especially from the Low
Countries that Denmark derived its style known as Gothic
Renaissance because of its wealth of medieval survivals
such as stair-towers and lofty spires. This style had little

420

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 421

influence on the development of church architecture; on the
other hand it was extensively used in secular buildings and
notably in a series of buildings erected under Frederik II
and Christian IV (Kronborg, Vallo Castle, Frederiksborg,
Rosenborg, and the Copenhagen Exchange), which al-
though they unquestionably are modelled closely on build-
ings in the Netherlands, yet show distinct adaptation to
Danish taste, and have ever since been held in esteem as
something of a national product. The Dutch influence was
succeeded in the eighteenth century by the baroque and the
rococo, to which we owe some of the most beautiful work
in Copenhagen and its neighborhood. Hausser's Chris-
tiansborg, of which the interior was decorated under the
direction of Thura and Eigtved, has been burned down, and
so has Thura's Hirschholm Castle; but of the work of this
great builder, author of "The Danish Vitruvius," there re-
main, among other things, the Hermitage in Dyrehaven,
the Prince's Palace in Copenhagen, and Vor Frelsers Kirke
at Kristianshavn. The four palaces of Amalienborg Plads
— perhaps in their way the most beautiful in all Europe —
still support Eigtved's claim to the title of the supreme rep-

1 18 -lit

f K?l !■ *

<:.'■• mull' -

Amalienborg in Copenhagen, designed by Nikolai Eigtved

422 SCANDINAVIAN ART

resentative of the restrained baroque style. By the time
the reaction set in against baroque and its form of expression
in interior decoration, rococo, Eigtved was dead. Jardin,
the French architect who was summoned to Denmark to
take his place, was an adherent of the new tendency toward
the antique. His task was to complete the Frederikskirke,
for which Eigtved had furnished the design, intended to be
carried out in Norwegian marble. After ten years, how-
ever, work was suspended on account of lack of funds; it
has at last been completed in our own times in a form sub-
stantially different from that originally planned, so that it is
only from lesser undertakings, such as Bernstorff's Castle,
that one can form an idea of Jardin's work as an artist. He
is of greater significance to Danish architecture in his
capacity as teacher of Harsdorff. When Harsdorff went in
1 757 to Paris, where a few years before Soufflot had com-
pleted his epoch-making Pantheon, he had already begun the
study of the forms of classical architecture under Jardin's
guidance. Naturally, for him as for the other architects of
his time, this study had to start from Palladio, but whatever
the course of his development in Paris, he had only to go from
Paris to Rome in order to realize that Palladio was a bypath,
and that the straight road was the study of the actual monu-
ments of antiquity. Then and subsequently, by the use of
Stuart's book on the antiquities of Athens — although he
never saw Greece, or even acquired a real knowledge of
Greek art — he attained a sufficient understanding of the
Ionic style to be able to use the Ionic column long before the
majority of his contemporaries, without falling into error
in the matter of proportions. It was especially by his
introduction of the Ionic column into Denmark that he made
his mark in our architectural history. His talents, unfor-
tunately, were never satisfactorily turned to account. To
a great extent they were wasted on temporary decorations
in preparation for royal festivals and so forth, on buildings
of perishable materials, on alterations and restorations of a
trivial and restricted kind. Of comparatively important
works from his hand, there may be mentioned a mortuary

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 423

chapel in the Karise Church at Faxe, the Hercules Lodge in
Rosenborg gardens; as his masterpiece, the colonnade be-
tween the palaces of Amalienborg, which although made
only of wood, has, none the less, owing to its perfect beauty
of proportion and line, enjoyed from that day to this a
merited reputation as the standard of neo-Classic architec-
ture in Denmark. After the fire in 1795, which laid whole
quarters of Copenhagen in ashes, Harsdorff found an

Colonnade between the Palaces of Amalienborg,
designed by C. F. Harsdorff

opportunity to show his discriminating taste and his skill in
producing an imposing effect even on a small scale, in erec-
tion of a series of simple and nobly-proportioned houses for
Copenhagen citizens. At the same time he was occupied
on plans for the completion of the Frederikskirke, but
these were interrupted by his death, and all the great
undertakings that lay before him, the reconstruction of
Christiansborg, Frue Kirke, the Court-house in Copen-
hagen, devolved upon one of his pupils, Chr. Fr. Hansen,
whose heavier but also more magnificent Roman style, for
instance in Christiansborg and in the Court-house, has been
for the first time properly appreciated in the last ten years.
He had two faithful henchmen, of whom one was Mailing,
the builder of Copenhagen University and Soro Academy,
and the other was Hetsch, the son of the well known his-

424

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Court-house in Copenhagen, designed by Chr. Fr. Hansen

torical painter and director of the Stuttgart gallery. The
latter, who had studied as a young man under Percier and
Lebas in Paris, never became an architect of any great con-
sequence (his most important buildings are the Synagogue
and the Catholic church in Copenhagen) ; but as a repre-
sentative of the Empire style and as a persevering advocate
of the intimate connection between art and handicraft, he
had a decisive influence on the taste of the nation, assailing
its aberrations in his writings, speech, and actions, and con-
stantly pointing to antiquity as the only means of salvation.
In opposition to this dogmatism there came forward, from
about 1840 onward, a younger architect of bolder and more
unprejudiced vision, livelier imagination, greater original-
ity, and, combined with all these, a knowledge of the vari-
ous styles unusual for those days. This was M. G. Bindes-
boll. Actively inspired from his youth by Harsdorff,
influenced during his residence in Paris by Gau, whom he
knew through Semper's history, Bindesboll, too, had an
affection for the classical style. His sense of beauty, how-
ever, was open to impressions from all sides, so that he

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 425

had the capacity to enjoy eminent examples of practically
every style. He differed notably from his predecessors in
his endeavor always to introduce color and pictorial effects.
Thus on his trip to Italy and Greece (about 1835) he took
equal interest in Pompeian houses, Sicilian churches, and in
the Turkish pavilions and mosques of Athens, where he had
an opportunity, during the excavations on the Acropolis, to
study at first hand the evidences of the use of color in Greek
architecture. With his head full of all these studies, he

The Thorvaldsen Museum, designed by M. G. Bindesboll

began his project of the museum for Thorvaldsen's work,
to which he devoted the best powers of his maturity; in its
final form it was not only his masterpiece, but the greatest
work of genius that Danish architecture has brought forth.
The motif of the beautiful facade with its five doors is
related to the sarcophagus of Mycerinus, but in its lightness
it is more Attic than Egyptian, and the plan of the whole — ■
a court in the centre, with Thorvaldsen's grave, surrounded
by a two-storied structure with galleries and series of com-
municating halls and smaller rooms — is neither Egyptian
nor Greek, but Bindesboll's own, and a better plan could
hardly be devised for a building which is intended to be at

426 SCANDINAVIAN ART

the same time a museum and a mausoleum for an individual
artist. It is impossible to imagine a museum better arranged
to do justice to Thorvaldsen's work. In the great halls for
the colossal pieces, in the small rooms for a single statue and
a few bas-reliefs, in the long galleries for Alexander's Expe-
dition and the pediment group from Frue Kirke — every-
where the space appears to have been apportioned exactly
to the works which it was intended to accommodate. And
so it actually was. With his knowledge of every one of the
master's works, and his affection for them, Bindesboll cal-
culated everything for their disposition and contributed to
the variety of their effect by the free use of stucco and color
on ceilings and walls. In this building, which is polychrome
even to the terra cotta colored exterior walls with Sonne's
splendid but unfortunately almost vanished sgraffiato pic-
tures of Thorvaldsen's return to Copenhagen, which we have
already mentioned above, Bindesboll realized his dream of
transporting the beauty of Southern color to the dreary
Northern clime, and from that day to this there has been no
place in Denmark more pleasant to frequent than this, with
its warm and joyful beauty.

Unfortunately there was no place in the country for his
great talents either, and only this once could Bindesboll fully
accomplish his dream. Another project from his hand show-
ing genius, this time in a kind of medieval style, was a plan
for a zoological museum ; it never got further than paper.
The work he did in his capacity of official architect often
had the stamp of his discriminating taste, sometimes also
of his originality, but it suffered noticeably from limited
scope and lack of regard for artistic considerations. "It
must be done as quickly as possible, and it must be done as
cheaply as possible; it must be finished to-morrow, and cost
twopence," said Hetsch bitterly of the conditions under
which architecture in Denmark had to labor; both before
his time and since, these handicaps have rendered useless a
great many noble impulses toward beauty. Unfortunately
for their country, but fortunately for themselves, two tal-
ented contemporaries and fellow artists of Bindesboll's, the

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 427

brothers Hansen, escaped from the dreariness of their exist-
ence at home. The elder, Chr. Hansen, who settled in
Athens and built, among other things, the University there,
later returned to Copenhagen, where he built the Municipal
Hospital, the Natural History Museum, and other build-
ings ; the younger, Theophilus Hansen, who was summoned
to Athens by his brother and soon attracted the notice of
the Germans there by his work on the observatory, later
settled in Vienna, where he made himself a great name by
his splendid buildings — the Waffenmuseum, the Heinrichs-
hof, the Erzherzog Wilhelm's palace, the Musikverein,
the Borse, the Akademie der Kiinste, the Reichstag building,
etc. But he was thus completely lost to Denmark.

Meanwhile, from the fifties onward, with the increasing
knowledge of the country's older architecture and a hitherto
unknown eagerness to preserve its monuments by the help of
intelligent restoration, there developed in Denmark an
impulse toward a more national trend in contemporary
architecture — a tendency which found expression in various
ways, incidentally in the return of brick, a native product,
to a position of honor and dignity, displacing plaster, which,
in defiance of the Danish climate, had been used hitherto
to cover the natural building material. The leader of this
movement, Herholdt, did not confine himself to any one
style, but adapted himself to the circumstances of his subject,
and therefore did not hesitate to seek such motifs as he
needed beyond the boundaries of Denmark. Thus the
National Bank in Copenhagen, with its massive rustication,
is late Italian Renaissance; the Studenterforeningen, with
its lighter feeling, is rather earlier Italian Renaissance; the
central railway station (since torn down), most nearly
Romanesque; the motif of the University Library is from
San Fermo in Verona. Whether the style of this last build-
ing is really suitable for a library is perhaps doubtful, but
as to the beauty of the building there can be no doubt; both
the facade and the great hall for the books are among the
most splendid of the few real show-places of recent Copen-
hagen architecture. As much may be said of several build-

428

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Interior of the University Library, in Copenhagen,
designed by J. D. Herholdt

ings — notably Abel Kathrine's Home, the Soldenfeldt
Foundation, and Hirschsprung's Museum — by Storck, a
pupil of Herholdt's, as talented as his master; particu-
larly in the first of these buildings, an institution for
aged women, he has shown unusual ability to produce the
tone that is appropriate to the occasion — in this case, a feel-
ing of cloistered peace. Whatever else one may think of the
Danish architecture of this period, feeling was not its strong
point. Meldahl's Frederikskirke or his restoration of the
interior of Frederiksborg Castle; Dahlerup's Jesuskirke, his
Art Museum, or Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, or the Royal
Theatre, which he did in collaboration with Ove Petersen;
the latter's Dagmar Theatre; Albert Jansen's exhibition
building at Charlottenborg or his Magasin du Nord; Klein's
Industrial Exhibition building and Art Industry Museum;

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 429

Abel Kathrine's Home, designed by
H. B. Storck

Fenger's technical
school, Mathaeus-
kirke, fire station,
electric lighting
plant, and municipal
schools ; Vilhelm Pe-
tersen's Custom
House and Scientific
Society building;
even if among these
or other examples
of the work of such
architects as these
there are a few
which are entirely praiseworthy for the effort to attain
style or for the taste, which they display (although some
of them are complete failures in these very respects), one
may fairly say, none the less, that to these practitioners
architecture was merely a matter of style, rather than a
real expression of personality. They set out to bring the
plan of their undertaking into conformity with their knowl-
edge of some particular style, instead of trying to get into
the spirit of their problem and make the building so far as
possible an expression of their interpretation of the function
that it is intended to fulfill.

At last it dawned on Danish builders that a piece of archi-
tecture does not have character merely because it is executed
in a certain style; that a man can carry over into a plan
and a facade his personal relationship to the problem in
hand, and that a happy solution of the problem depends
mainly on his ability to live in a human relation to his work
and infuse his own life into its innermost spirit. As has al-
ready been pointed out, Bindesboll has supplied a shining
example and Storck several fine examples of this tendency;
it should here be added that Hans Holm, likewise, in certain
of his works, such as the building of the office for the man-
agement of estates of orphans, and the laying out of Vestre
Cemetery, which shows remarkable feeling, has proved that

430 SCANDINAVIAN ART

this point of view was not entirely foreign to the best of the
older generation. But the most recent generation is the first
that has done it full justice. The work, to be sure, has
constantly been based on a foundation of history, and chiefly
of national history, on studies of the architecture either of
the Middle Ages, or of the Renaissance, or of the baroque
period, or the neo-Classic; but on the one hand the require-
ments which the building is intended to meet are brought out
more clearly than they used to be, and in general the building
is allowed more right to exist for its own sake ; on the other
hand there is more indulgence of the pleasures of subjec-
tivity than men formerly dared to permit themselves. For
this new attitude has necessarily done away with much of
the dryness and sourness which for so long were among the
most pervasive characteristics of Danish architecture. The
new buildings often impress one as better humored than their
predecessors. They also have clearer consciences, for con-
struction in Copenhagen and its neighborhood nowadays is
solider and sounder than it used to be. Formerly one never
saw granite or sandstone used for private houses; nowadays
neither is rare, and one even sees marble used. The more
generous attitude toward architecture on the part of its
patrons is certainly due not so much to better times as to a
more general understanding of the builder's aims. Such an
understanding has become possible because the builders are
no longer so anxious to make their work ornamental, and
are much more anxious to make it thoroughly appropriate.
A large number of younger architects share the honor of
inaugurating this improvement; on the average, perhaps,
they are not quite the equals of their elders in technical
training, but they are far superior in their understanding of
the demands of every-day life upon their art. In this con-
nection one may mention Schiodte, Ludvig Clausen, Wenck,
V. Koch, Levy, Clemmensen, M. Borch, Leuning Borch,
Axel Berg, F. Koch, Emil Jorgensen, Eugen Jorgensen,
Kampmann, Warming, Brummer, Ingwersen, Tvede, Rosen,
Ingemann, Magdahl-Nielsen, Thorvald Jorgensen. To the
last-named has fallen the heavy and arduous charge of con-

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 431

structing the new Christiansborg; unfortunately, for many
special reasons, this building takes a place outside of the
wholesome course of development of Danish architecture in
general. With this exception, in the vast majority of cases
the artists in question, whether their problem has been a
railway station or a country house, a barracks or a school, a
theatre or an archive building, a library or a hotel, have
consciously endeavored to make the building unmistakably
express that particular phase of the Danish spirit, lay, aca-
demic, military, mercantile, or whatever else, in which the
life within the building might be expected to shape itself.
A still younger generation has lately taken up architecture
in Denmark and has made it more Danish than ever by
establishing the old Danish models as the only ones that are
natural and proper. This generation has taken for its ideals
not only the baroque buildings of the towns but the farm-
houses and parsonages of the country, habitations designed
exclusively to suit the needs of their owners, entirely simple
and unpretentious, yet for that very reason often very beau-
tiful. It cannot be denied that the younger architects who
represent these ideals, Ivar Bentsen, Baumann, Carl Peter-
sen, Hygom, Henning Hansen, Fisker, Rafn, and others,
are even more closely than their predecessors in league with
the rural districts, nor that they know how to build so as
not to detract from the beauty of the country, but their
style is perhaps less suitable for building in the capital. To
a certain extent these young architects are under the influ-
ence of Klint, who in point of age belongs to the preceding
generation. He has not done much building; his master-
piece, a memorial church to Grundtvig, has not yet gone
beyond the model stage; but he has had so much the more
time to think about his art, and both in speech and in writing
he has supported the tendency which the best of the young
men are now following. The first man in modern Denmark,
however, to point out to architecture its mission among men
was Martin Nyrop; his influence is still perceptible. It was
he who at the beginning of the new century completed the
Copenhagen Town Hall. In the style of that splendid build-

432

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Copenhagen Town Hall, designed by Martin Nyrop

ing there were elements from many periods and many re-
gions. In the fagade, with its battlements and tower, and
in the semi-circular open space before it, one easily recog-
nizes the influence of medieval Tuscan city halls; in the
great hall with the open loggia at the front, the influence is
unmistakable of Renaissance courts in Genoa and Rome; for
the blind arcade of the first story a group of old Danish
manor-houses supplied the model; many of the light-colored
decorations of the whitewashed rooms were taken from old
frescoes in Danish churches. Nyrop tried to work all these
very diverse ingredients into a unified whole, and in many
particulars he succeeded beyond all expectation. The exte-
rior, however, is not as successful as the interior. The great
hall — with the exception of the ceiling decoration and a few
details — is one of the most beautiful of modern assembly-
rooms, light in its effect, airy and bright, nobly conceived and
monumental, yet free from ostentation or pretentiousness.
What gave this building its peculiar attraction, however,
was the amiable spirit that prevailed in all the every-day
rooms and offices and corridors and stairways and so on.

DANISH ART IN THE XIX CENTURY 433

The Great Hall in the Copenhagen Town Hall, designed
by Martin Nyrop

In all such places a loving hand had so caressed the objects
of practical utility, giving them such artistic form, that even
the heaviest mind must feel itself lightened by moving in
such surroundings, where beauty is so liberal with its smile.
Granted that the beauty was not always as exquisite as one
might have wished; that Nyrop was not always fastidious
enough in his choice of collaborators, that by no means
everything was first hand or first rate, that the taste here
and there, especially on the exterior, was a little childish and
showed a delight in details and trifles rather than a felicitous
sense of unified monumental effect — perhaps it was just be-
cause of all this, perhaps it was just because no very great
refinement of taste was needed for the appreciation of its
artistic qualities, that this genuinely democratic building
won all hearts and was greeted with an enthusiasm such as
has never been shown for any other work of Danish archi-
tecture.

With its mighty tower, bold yet not boastful; with its
portal, rich yet not ornate; with its whole character perme-
ated with Danish distaste for the venturesome, the exag-

434 MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

gerated, the presumptuous, and with Danish taste for the
intelligible, the natural, and the simple, this building stands
as a symbol for future generations, as a testimonial to the
endeavor not only of Danish architecture but of all Danish
art throughout the nineteenth century and now in the twen-
tieth to be sincere, to offer nothing except what it really had.
to seem nothing except what it really was.

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

By
JENS THUS

Director of The National Gallery at Christiania

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

By Jens Thus

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY PIONEERS
DAHL AND FEARNLEY

THE new Norway that achieved independence in 1814
saw the foundation of its pictorial art contemporane-
ously with the foundation of its judicial and political
freedom. Norwegian painting thus belongs among the most
recent in Europe, in so far as its traditions can hardly with
good reason be traced farther back than to the beginning
of the nineteenth century.

Norway, to be sure, had art before this time. In our
saga period, in the early Middle Ages of European civiliza-
tion, Norway appears even to have had a prominent place
in the domain of the arts. The Oseberg antiquities bear bril-
liant witness to an individual and independent artistic cul-
ture; and the cathedrals of Trondhjem and of Stavanger
and Haakonshallen remain as precious monuments from the
era of our national eminence in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. Recent research has made it clear, furthermore,
that we had at this time also the arts of sculpture and paint-
ing in Norwegian forms, although they bore a close rela-
tionship to the cultivation of the arts in other occidental
lands. Not only were French and English artists, summoned
from abroad, at work among us; it is manifest, as well, that
there was emerging from the soil of Norway itself an art

437

438 SCANDINAVIAN ART

which actually took on the character of schools in the various
parts of the country. The names of the artists have been
forever blotted out by time; but their works have to some
extent been preserved in the form of antependia, crucifixes,
and painted decorations from our oldest churches.

This art life, however, declined with the decline of our
national independence, and received its quietus upon the
coming of the Reformation. Even after that time, it is true,
artists of Norwegian nationality are to be found, and also
pictures of an ancient date which may be said probably or
certainly to have been done in Norway. Yet these sporadic,
for the most part ecclesiastical, pictures or portraits from
the sixteenth, seventeenth, or eighteenth century possess so
little originality that it is difficult on the basis of these relics
to form the vaguest conception of an independent Norwe-
gian school of painting or of a consecutive pictorial tradition
in our country.

Nevertheless, such absence of a national art in the higher
sense is by no means to be understood as an evidence of lack
of artistic impulses among the people. On the contrary.
The artistic tendencies which among other nations since the
days of the Renaissance have been directed steadily toward
greater individual expression took a peculiarly general form
under the special cultural conditions surrounding the rural
Norwegian people in the time of the Danish sovereignty.
These tendencies gave rise to a decorative art, which ac-
quired a sharply distinctive character in the various provin-
cial communities and, hedged about by vigorous tradition,
gradually spread farther abroad.

There are, however, from the period preceding the nine-
teenth century, a small number of artists of Norwegian birth
whose names and dates are known, as well as their works.
Among these Magnus Berg, a man of peasant origin who
died in 1739, stands preeminent for talents as a painter and
carver that made him illustrious to fame in his own day.
He was a highly developed technician, numbered as a worker
in ivory among the best in the baroque age. All of his activi-
ties, however, fall outside of his native land, since he lived

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 439

for the most part in Copenhagen, in the employ of the king,
and died there.

Even during the last years of the union with Denmark,
intellectual life in Norway began to assume independent
forms and to become conscious of its individuality. After
the bonds of adherence were severed, our nation spontane-
ously asserted its freedom also in the sphere of art, although
the Academy in Copenhagen for a long time continued to be
the nearest and most obvious school for young Norwegian
painters.

As early as a decade or two after the rebirth of our
political independence in 1814 one could name a small group
of painters who were commonly regarded as forming an
actually Norwegian school of painting, though all of them
had sought their training abroad and still were compelled
to seek their livelihood there. The fact was that at home in
Norway the collective energies were so completely occupied
in the arduous struggle to establish the country economically
and to secure its self-government in the new union with
Sweden, that a considerable number of years went by before
the Norwegian artists could take root in their native soil.

Yet though the entire older school of Norwegian painters
were trained at foreign academies, such as those of Copen-
hagen, Dresden, Dusseldorf, and Munich, and in a great
part lived abroad, none the less they painted the scenes of
home. By means of summer visits and frequent travels in
the land of their birth they maintained contact with the
people and the nature that their art portrayed.

In a survey of the history of Norwegian art no one is
more deserving of mention than Johan Christian Clausson
Dahl, who has been called the father of our national art of
painting. Not only with regard to time but with regard to
artistic rank he stands among the foremost, as the renewer
and regenerator of the art conceptions of his age and as the
most gifted interpreter of Norwegian nature we have had.

Johan Christian Dahl, the son of a poor fisherman and
ferryman of Bergen, was born in 1788. After eight years
of experience jas a journeyman painter in his native city, he

440 SCANDINAVIAN ART

became, at the age of twenty-three, a pupil at the Academy
of Art in Copenhagen. During his apprenticeship in Copen-
hagen, however, it was not the professors at the Academy
but old Dutch masters in Danish collections who developed
his feeling for nature and opened his eyes to the possibili-
ties of paint. How much he owed to these masters is most
clearly to be seen in certain youthful pictures which, together
with a selection of his splendid studies from nature, are
grouped in our National Gallery. Even in such a work from
Dahl's later period as the magnificent painting, dated 1838,
of Hougsfossen with its lowering heavens and its glitter-
ing birch bending over the cascade, there are reminders of
that great old Dutch nature poet and romanticist, Jacob
van Ruisdael; with this reservation, however, that Dahl's

Hougsfossen, by Johan Christian Dahl. In the National Gallery

realism is by so much the stronger that he does not hesitate
to drag salmon fisheries and the sheds and the piled timbers
of a saw-mill into his romanticism.

Moreover, Dahl's preparatory years fell within a time
during which a new and a fuller conception of nature was
coming to the fore in literature and art; and he became
himself one of those who, in the struggle against the older.

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 441

Copenhagen by Moonlight, by Johan Christian Dahl. Privately

owned

conventionally classical view of art, contributed to the
supremacy of a deeper and more personal understanding
of nature. What Henrik Wergeland was to be for Nor-
wegian poetry and national feeling, Dahl was to be for
Norwegian painting and the appreciation of nature. Be-
sides, just as Wergeland in his production worked his way
out from overwrought romanticism into clearness and real-
ism, so Dahl with the passing years became more and more
a confessed naturalist, and almost all of his later pictures
are deeply rooted in immediate studies from nature which,
during his entire life, he painted in great numbers. One
of these studies is reproduced here, Copenhagen by Moon-
light, painted in 1846.

On his return in 1821 from a sojourn in Italy Dahl was
offered a professorship at the Dresden Academy of Art;
and, although he vacillated between this proposition and simi-
lar intimations from Copenhagen, he finally decided to
choose Dresden. At home in Norway, under the prevail-
ing conditions, there was, in fact, not the least probability
of a livelihood for a painter who was not willing to face
actual poverty; and Dahl was already well on his way

442

SCANDINAVIAN ART

toward European fame. Although as an academy profes-
sor in Dresden he was thus doomed to live far from the
land he loved, he never ceased to interpret and to glorify
through his art the nature of Norway.

It is no exaggeration to say that Dahl was the pictorial
discoverer of Norwegian landscape. Even in his youth he
writes of Norway as a virgin soil that is capable of yielding
a rich harvest. So on his summer travels he wandered over
valley and mountainside, followed the long coast line, and
penetrated the recesses of the fjords, to return afterward
to his studio in Dresden with a rich garner of wonderfully
fresh and colorful nature studies.

In Dahl's depiction of Norway the western part of the
country, the so-called Westland, naturally takes the most
conspicuous place ; but his lively mind and liberal spirit
made him kindle easily into enthusiasm for the nature of
Norway in its entirety. Still he reached perhaps his high-
est attainment in the portrayal of mountain height and heath.
On his last tour through Norway he passed over Filefjeld

#e*^'

'•'): '.''-^ V ■■•""

Stugunoset, by Johan Christian Dahl. In the National Gallery

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

443

Stalheim, by Johan Christian Dahl. In the National Gallery

to Bergen; a fruit of his studies on this trip is the picture
called Stugunoset, painted in 185 1. Never, before or since,
has Norwegian mountain scenery been presented with such
power. One forgets the smallness of the canvas in contem-
plating the boldness of the outline. This mighty mountain
ridge, formed when the world was young, that pushes its
long moss-decked expanse, on which herds of reindeer are
grazing, down toward the abyss — that is mountain scenery;
it is great and dramatically composed landscape art.

If it comes to a question as to what Dahl was capable of
at the height of his artistic powers, Norwegians who believe
in his greatness can point to such works as the magnificent
nature symphony on a theme from Stalheim, now in the
National Gallery, or Birch-tree in Storm, privately owned
in Bergen. In the last-named picture, especially, his lyri-
cism and love of country together have created a work of
art that is a virtual symbol of Norway.

At the edge of the sheer mountain ridge, above sunken
valley and driving fog, there is a crevice so shielded from

444

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Birch-tree in Storm, by Johan Christian Dahl. Privately owned in

Bergen

northern storms that the moss has been enabled to clothe
the rocks and to gather mold. In this sparse earth, the
salvage of centuries, a birch has taken root and is clinging
fast. Year after year it has grown more erect against the
winds of the heath and the breath of glaciers; now it stands
in its full stature and maturity with glittering leafage on
every bough. Blonde and full-bosomed, fragrant and trans-
lucent, it bends over the deep valley; and the sap is flowing

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 445

through tough wood beneath that silken bark. One day
the sun pours a wealth of light and warmth over its foliage;
the next day the western blast lays a strangling hold upon
it and forces it toward the earth so that branches writhe
and leaves are twisted about. Dahl has seen the birch while
the two forces were in collision. The storm wrenches the
crown and bends the trunk into a bow; but the sun pierces
through the rift in the clouds and throws glancing rays over
the struggling branches. It is only a birch, yet it is a poem
whose theme is meagre soil and ready growth.

Paintings by Dahl are to be found, besides in the National
Gallery and in the Picture Gallery in Bergen, also in the
Danish Art Museum and in various German collections,
such as the galleries in Dresden, Berlin, Cassel, Hamburg,
and Prague.

While Dahl is under discussion, it should not be forgotten
that he demonstrated his love for Norway by other means
as well as by his art. He exerted himself in persistent and
enthusiastic efforts to awaken artistic life among our people.
It was Dahl who took the initiative toward the founding
of the National Gallery, and it was he who was instrumental
in establishing art societies in the larger cities throughout
Norway. His name is connected with the cathedral at
Trondhjem and with the restoration of Haakonshallen, and
in 1837 he published in German a volume on Norway's
medieval timber churches. Dahl died in Dresden, October
14, 1857.

Dahl's most talented pupil was Thomas Fearnley; he was
born at Fredrikshald in 1802, and died at Munich in 1841.
Fearnley received his first instruction in painting in Copen-
hagen, and more especially in Stockholm under Fahlcrantz;
it was not, however, until he met Dahl on a sketching trip
through Norway that he found the right path. He was
at once strongly impressed with the poetic naturalism of
the master, and during a considerable stay in Dresden the
two painters, working together, developed a close and
devoted friendship for each other.

Fearnley, for his part, was throughout life driven on by

446

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A Terrace at Sorrento, by Thomas Fearnley. Privately owned in
Christiania

love of travel, and his restless blood, which was not wholly
Norwegian, yearned eagerly for new sensations. First to
Munich, later to Italy, thereafter to Switzerland, Paris,
England, Norway, and back to Munich — such were his
wanderings; but just as he had settled down, filled with
impressions of art and nature, and was about to do his best
work, death carried him off before his fortieth year.

In Fearnley's case the influence of the clear outlines of
Italian landscape and, next to that, the vision of the gigantic
Alpine world of contours became decisive. He was strongly
tempted to remain in Italy; here he painted the most splen-
did studies, and here in the land of sunlight and wine his
joyous and sensuous nature was at ease. Fearnley's dream
as an artist was this : without being false to the veracious
study of nature in which Dahl had schooled him, to develop
a more elevated ideal art than that which might be attained

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

447

solely by the "nature" method of Dahl, an art in which
monumental beauty of line and romantic sensibility were to
be joined in a richness of harmony else unknown to contem-
porary art.

In pure painting Fearnley did not attain so high a level
as Dahl; but as a creative and poetic artist he was Dahl's
equal. Henrik Wergeland says in his characterization of
the two men that Dahl's paintings indicate a genius of
sharper profile, of greater independence. This is true in
so far as Fearnley never reaches Dahl's exuberant liveli-
ness or the rich tone of his execution. Yet Fearnley'js aim
is often the higher as regards firm and conscious composi-
tion; his draughtsmanship is sure and confident, and he ex-
presses what he wills with imposing calm.

Fearnley's masterpiece is Labrofossen, now in the Na-
tional Gallery, painted in England in 1837 after studies
from his last journey in Norway. A copious stream is flow-
ing directly toward the spectator in a broad, foaming cas-
cade. A dead pine tree stretches its withered branches up
toward a lowering, foreboding sky. On both sides are dark

:■ ■

v / jm|

-*•*'■*<"''- '"mi .„.

m -

Labrofossen, by Thomas Fearnley. In the National Gallery

448 SCANDINAVIAN ART

masses of pine forest rising into ridges in the background.
Wet clouds sweep over them. In the foreground a log is
caught in an eddy of the river. Upon it an eagle has settled,
the only living thing in a lonely waste.

Among Norwegian landscapes there is hardly another
that is composed more decidedly in the grand manner than
Fearnley's Labrofossen, and no other that has its resound-
ing power in the shifting harmonies of lights and shadows.
The coloring, to be sure, is cold and clear, with something
of the monotony of enamels. Still this cold and reserved
color scheme gives an impression of distance and sublimity.
Like an ossianic mood which has become clarified and fixed
in permanent form, this picture remains as an enduring
witness that the great romantic movement swept with the
beating of wings over the work of one Norwegian artist
at least.

Among Dahl's other pupils brief mention will be made
here only of Baade and Frich. Knud Baade, who was born
at Stavanger in 1808, was a student in the Academy of Art
at Copenhagen before coming to Dahl in Dresden. Baade
took up a special feature of Dahl's many-sided landscape
art, namely moonlight painting, and made it a specialty.
In 1845 Knud Baade removed to Munich, where he lived
and worked as a. highly esteemed artist till his death in

i879-

I. C. Frich, who was born at Bergen in 18 10, also came
under Dahl's direction after having been a pupil at the
Academy in Copenhagen. Dahl received his fellow towns-
man warmly, and Frich seemed at first inclined to follow
Dahl's lead. The times, however, were full of temptations
to forsake the nature method professed by Dahl, and Frich
too departed for Munich, which was becoming the new seat
of more impressive and romantic color doctrines. Frich,
it should be noted, was the first among the Norwegian
painters trained in Germany who made a serious attempt to
live at home. Till the very time of his death in 1858 he
resided in Christiania, where he was a teacher in the School
of Design and a member of the board of directors of the

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

449

The Bjornsteg Beacon, by Johan Flintoe. In the National Gallery

National Gallery and of Kunstforeningen. His eight large
landscapes from scenically beautiful places in Norway,
painted in 1850 in the dining-room at Oscarshal, Oscar I's
newly erected country palace on Ladegaardsoen, are his
principal works.

Another artist who actually made his residence in Chris-
tiania during these formative years in our art life was
Johan Flintoe. He was born in Danish Holstein and died
at Copenhagen in 1870; yet by his activities and by the
themes of his art he belongs to Norway. In earlier days
Flintoe was best known as a teacher of drawing in the newly
established Royal School of Design and as a painter of views
and panoramas in the little town that was Christiania of
the thirties and forties. His importance as an artist, how-
ever, was not estimated at its proper value so long as his
Norwegian landscapes, painted in water-color and in
gouache, remained hidden in Danish private collections.
Now that they have become known and for the most part
have been acquired for the National Gallery or other Nor-

450 SCANDINAVIAN ART

wegian collections, they disclose a new side of Flintoe's
talent. They reveal him as an actual discoverer of an essen-
tial feature in the nature of Norway. Norwegian mountain
scenery, which at that time was virgin soil for art, he appre-
hended, in pictures such as those of Myrhorn, The Bjornsteg
Beacon, and Jostedalsbraeen, with a cold and keen vision
like that of the older Dane Eckersberg, and reproduced it
with unsophisticated and precise faithfulness to detail. Still
his depiction of these mountain heights has undeniable great-
ness and expressiveness of modelling. As a painter, though
he had an unusually fine sense of values, Flintoe was a puri-
tanical colorist who with rationalistic persistence kept apart
from all romantic depth and mysticism, and continuously
moved within a gamut of cold, meagre, daylight colors.
Certain phases of his art touch phases of Dahl's ; but, unques-
tionably, Flintoe's talent is the drier and the more attenu-
ated, and its greatest strength lies in dispassionate sincerity.
Norwegian naturalism may properly look back to Flintoe
as one of its earliest progenitors.

Another side of Flintoe's endowment is revealed by the
satirical drawings in the National Gallery, in which he pic-
tures humorously and with rare narrative power the diffi-
culties and dangers of travel under the primitive conditions
that surrounded the tourist in Norway at that time. Of
Flintoe as a teacher, Hans Gude, who became a pupil of his
at the age of twelve, says that this master was an artist by
nature, and that he was principally indebted to him for the
early acquisition of a certain sense of beauty of form.

Figure painters are neither numerous nor very prominent
in this first period of the history of Norwegian art. The
most significant among them is Jacob Munch. Munch was
born at Christianssand in 1776, received the education of a
military officer, and became a captain in the Norwegian
army in 18 12. At the age of twenty-eight, however, he
entered as a pupil in the Academy of Art at Copenhagen;
later he travelled for a time, and saw David's art in Paris
and Thorvaldsen's in Rome. Subsequently Munch made
his home in Christiania, and many are the portraits he

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

451

painted of his countrymen and countrywomen. Best known
in his large picture representing the Coronation of Carl
Johan in the cathedral at Trondhjem in 1818; this work,
now in the palace at Christiania, is weak as a whole, but has
occasional good portrait heads. On his youthful travels
he painted Oehlenschlager in Paris in 1807 and Thorvaldsen
in Rome in 18 10.
During the time of
his activities at
home he was the
portrait painter of
the Old Eidsvold
men, the elderly
generals and
landed proprietors,
somewhat dry and
wooden in form,
yet, as a pupil of
David, elegant and
genteel; moreover,
his portraits often
disclose a powerful
feeling for charac-
ter.

Munch was one
of the founders of
the Royal School

of Art and Design in Christiania, and was active as a teacher
in the institution till his death in 1839. To the family of
which he was a member belong also the painters Edvard
Munch and Fritz Thaulow. Munch's heir as the portrait
painter of Christiania society was Johan Gorbitz. This
Bergen man, Munch's junior by six years, had received a
solid training, first at the Academy in Copenhagen and later
in Paris, where he lived for a long time as a painter of minia-
tures and portraits. Gorbitz's portraits are impeccable and
skilful, but precise and dry. The best known work from his
hand is the girlishly attractive miniature of Niels Henrik

Portrait of the Artist, by Jacob Munch.
Privately owned

452

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Abel as a youth. For that matter, Gorbitz painted nearly
all the prominent men and fine ladies who sat for their por-
traits in Norway during the forties. He also produced small
landscapes on Norwegian themes, and was not untouched by
the influence of Dahl.

Another artist who alternately painted portraits and

landscapes was
Jacob Calmeyer.
He was born at
Fredrikshald in
1802; like Fearn-
ley he went to
Stockholm to study
and later to Dahl
in Dresden; he
lived for a time
in Copenhagen but
afterward in Chris-
tiania till his death
in 1884. Calmeyer
never acquired par-
ticular note as an
artist. Yet he
painted a portrait
or two of the poet
Welhaven as a
youth which indicate a sense of beauty and a bright and lov-
able apprehension of his subject.

A painter whose artistic work received little recognition
until it was collected at the Jubilee Exposition in 19 14 is
Mathias Stoltenberg. Stoltenberg, who was born in Tons-
berg in 1799, lived a long life, the laborious and well nigh
thankless life of the peripatetic portrait-painter, wandering
about the country, especially in the so-called Uplands, in the
region of Trondhjem, in Romsdalen, and in Nordland until
he died in 1871 at Vang in Hedemarken, where he found a
tardy home, if such it was. While Captain Munch was the
artist of the Empire period, with his French training in the

Portrait of Fru Moiniche, by Mathias
Stoltenberg. In the National Gallery

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 453

school of David, and the portrait painter of the aristocracy,
Stoltenberg was the painter of the more everyday official class
throughout the country in the good old Biedermeier days.
He evidently received his schooling in Denmark, since his
pictures betray a most obvious relationship to the portrait
art of the Danes Eckersberg, Kobke, and Jensen. The old
clergymen and county judges in their robes of office and
their elderly ladies in elegant fluted bonnets fastened with
silk bows beneath their chins — such was his clientele. By
preference he paints rather small portrait busts to be hung
above the damask-covered mahogany sofa in the living-
room, in full face so that all the features stand out, open
and straightforward countenances with a friendly, artless
expression and a wide-awake air, but with the furrows of
time frankly marked about the mouth and eyes. Stoltenberg
is a keen observer with a telling grasp of character, and in
the great range of his portraits one would search in vain
for mannerisms or repetitions. It can by no means be denied
that his simplicity and awkwardness in certain of the pictures
approach dilettanteism and that his draughtsmanship often
reveals its weaknesses. What saves him, nevertheless, is his
fresh, joyous sense of color, his juxtaposition of pure, clear
pigments in dresses, scarfs, ribbons, and flowers, collocations
which in all their unexpected innocence at times produce a
positively charming effect. Stoltenberg is one of those
painters who confirm the fact, which, to tell the truth, we are
glad to have confirmed, that the strength of our painting lies
in color.

TIDEMAND AND GUDE. DUSSELDORF
TECHNIQUE AND NORWEGIAN SUBJECTS

THE next generation of painters, who emerged in the
forties and whose tendencies became dominant in our
painting during the next decade or two, did not follow
in the foot-steps of Dahl and Fearnley. They proceeded
to Diisseldorf, where a new romantic school had grown
powerful and indeed supreme ; as distinct from Dahl's inti-
mate worship of nature, it was a more literary and eclectic
art of echoes, working according to fixed recipes of the
studio, an art with a leaning toward the theatrical, with a
taste for all that was sweet and sultry in coloring. Judging
it as a school, we cannot, with our present views on the
functions of painting, say that the tendency in Diisseldorf
was the most whslesome and beneficial for young talents.
The situation was quite clear to Dahl who, although him-
self resident in Germany, issued a warning against the new
German movement. Beware, he says, of the deceptive
glasses that color all things red and yellow, regardless of
aught but pleasing the great crowd, which is easily dazzled
by coquettish brilliance. He finds the Danish school of
the day much less contaminated and more faithful to nature
than the German. Therefore he also advises sending the
beginner first to Copenhagen and afterwards, when he has
gained experience, sending him farther, especially to Paris;
as a reason for this counsel he asserts that Diisseldorf has
not had so helpful an influence upon young Norwegian
painters as commonly supposed, and that the desirability of
a simpler point of view has frequently been manifest.

454

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 455

What Norwegian painting might have become in the
hands of the group of talented youth who came to the fore
in those days if they had followed the path indicated by
Dahl — to Denmark and thereafter to France, where art life
was in healthy and luxurious flower — instead of going by
way of Dusseldorf, is a subject for dreaming and specula-
tion. How Tidemand's lyric vein might have developed
and how his characterization of humanity might have been
deepened through artistic impressions in the land of Dela-
croix and Millet! How Gude's mild and equable sense
of the beauty of nature and Cappelen's great talents as a
nature poet might imaginably have been clothed in other
picturesque shapes if, instead of graduating from the Acad-
emy in Dusseldorf, they had been privileged to come in
contact with the masters of landscape in Fontainebleau and
to acquaint themselves with the spiritual art of Corot ! How
the original and earthy strength of the Norse endowment
might conceivably have broken a new path for itself if it
had come under the sway of the brutal peasant genius of
Courbet instead of the influence of the Dusseldorf practice
of art for the sake of art dealers ! Concerning these and
other possibilities one may dream and dispute.

The indisputable fact remains, however, that Norwegian
painting was left a remote stranger to the greatest thing
that happened in the history of art in the nineteenth century
— the burgeoning of French painting in the romanticism of
Delacroix and its bursting forth into naturalism. This it
was. reserved for a new generation to see — in part: the
generation of the seventies. Therefore, too, they gave their
entire energy to the breaking down of those German barriers
with which our art and the artistic perceptions of our
public had been walled in. Yet even if the foreign influ-
ence which from this time forth becomes predominant was
not the most fortunate, the period of the forties and fifties
stands out as a kind of golden age in Norwegian art,
richly endowed as it was with talent, and great as was the
national contribution in the universal struggle toward a
larger culture.

456 SCANDINAVIAN ART

The years about 1830 — the year of the July revolution —
had witnessed in Norway a period of kindling national con-
sciousness after the time of trial following the war and the
union in 18 14. The regaining of freedom, the advance in
self-government, the great past of the nation and its antici-
pated revival filled all minds with faith in the capacity of
the land and the people — a faith in which Henrik Werge-
land was the glowing core. In verse and in speech resounded
the praises of the doughty Norse yeoman and his rock-ribbed
land. Little was actually known, however, either of the
yeoman or of the land. Accordingly there followed in the
forties a period of positive effort directed toward acquiring
a knowledge of the country and its inhabitants, a period of
intellectual self-discovery in which science, poetry, and art
proceed side by side. In the subsequent romantic revival
there awoke realization of the need of connecting past with
present. Researches in history were begun which had their
chief representative in P. A. Munch, and systematic work
was set on foot to uncover and to preserve our antiquities
and to collect the treasures of the popular imagination. It
was during these years that our folk-tales, legends, and
ballads were brought together and interpreted by Asbjorn-
sen, Moe, and Landstad, and that composers like Kjerulf
and musicians like Ole Bull began to draw upon the rich
wells of folk melody. In this national renascence belong
also the names of Tidemand and Gude.

Adolf Tidemand was born in Mandal in the great year,
1 8 14. At the age of seventeen he went to Copenhagen and
became a pupil in the Academy of Art, where he studied
continuously for five years. Later he proceeded to Diissel-
dorf in order to prepare for historical painting. He seems
to have had some idea of becoming the painter of our heroic
past; but he soon realized that there were more immediate
tasks before him. Hitherto no Norwegian painter or poet
had devoted his talents wholly to depicting the Norwegian
folk type as it appeared in the farmer, the farmer as he
actually existed at that day, the heir of the traditions of the
past. This became the life-long mission of Tidemand as a

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 457

painter, to portray the Norwegian farmer, his manners and
customs, his distinctive inheritance of medieval culture, his
immemorial architecture, his particolored national costumes
and magnificent ornaments, his patriarchal mode of living,
and his simple, deep emotions. In this special field Tide-
mand very soon became an extremely popular artist.
Throughout Norway his renown has long since over-
shadowed that of all others in the popular estimation; and
in Germany at the height of his career he was reckoned
among the most prominent painters in the Germanic world,
was honored with decorations and cumbered with commis-
sions.

The artistic conceptions of our own time have, mean-
while, progressed far beyond the ideals of that day. Meas-
ured by modern demands upon painting, Tidemand's colored
drawings, designed according to the rules of composition
dictated by a theatrical scheme of aesthetics, have only rela-
tive value as art; and his romantic portrayal of the life of
the people with its ostentatious ideality, its lingering Sunday
peace, and its idyllic air has greater interest for the ethnog-
rapher and the student of the history of civilization than
for the student of folk psychology. However that may be,
one should, in the interest of personal appreciation and the
understanding of aesthetic evolution, examine the art of the
past historically, laying aside so. far as possible all ephemeral
prejudices. In estimating the art under discussion one ought
therefore to seek less after technical mastery and pictorial
refinement than after narrative skill, power of representa-
tion, and sense of harmony. All these qualities are to be
found to a marked degree in Tidemand's most celebrated
picture, his masterpiece The Disciples of Hauge, now in our
National Gallery. The composition dates from 1848. At
that time he painted the original, which is to be found in the
gallery at Diisseldorf; the replica in our National Gallery
is from the year 1852. The picture represents a lay
preacher, of the sect founded by Hans Nilsen Hauge, con-
ducting a prayer-meeting in an old Norwegian cabin. The
interior itself, with its smoky, raftered ceiling, its louver,

458

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Disciples of Hauge, by Adolf Tidemand. In the National

Gallery

and its fireplace in the middle of the floor, engages our
interest, as do the old-fashioned, variegated costumes. The
composition abounds in figures, and still is definitely and
harmoniously designed by means of groups which rise in
the form of a triangle to the resplendent central image of
the preacher. Gentle and fair of face he stands just beneath
the light, which streams through the louver and casts a trans-
figuring gleam over his features. As sunbeams are refracted
in a prism, so the words of the preacher are dispersed into
rays in the minds of his hearers and reflected in the expres-
sion of their faces through the whole scale, from indifference
to awe, from doubt and brooding to resignation and faith.
By means of a chain of contrasts — in age, sex, type, tempera-
ment-— the impression is conveyed. The central link in the
chain is the old giant in a red vest, seated in a chair hollowed
out of the solid trunk of a tree. What this old Norseman
really looked like before he was adapted to the picture
through the mediation of an Academy model in Diisseldorf

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

459

Study for the Disciples of Hauge, by Adolf Tidemand

the painter has permitted us to see in a magnificent portrait
study of a mountain farmer, to be found in the National
Gallery, an old fellow in a red cap, somber, weather-beaten,
and severe. On the whole, in order to know and to appre-
ciate Tidemand at his best, both as a painter and as a folk
psychologist, one must go to his studies. In them he stands
face to face with his people, far from German sentimentality
and school tradition, boldly realistic in outlook, and painting
what he sees. Especially in the studies of interiors he mani-

460

SCANDINAVIAN ART

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 461

fests a fine appreciation of color which his pictures, strongly
chromatic as they are, do not give evidence of. Tidemand
was an unusually prolific painter; and it cannot be denied
that his production was extremely uneven, the deep and the
shallow, the true and the false, the seriously executed and
the altogether too fugitive alternating in his work.

In 1845 Tidemand established himself in Diisseldorf and
remained there the rest of his days; during this period one
picture of Norwegian rural life followed upon the other in
rapid succession. Among these is the Catechization in a
Norwegian Country Church, dating from 1847. This pic-
ture, which Tidemand executed for King Oscar I, now hangs
in the palace at Christiania. It is probably the artist's most
popular canvas, partly on account of its own good qualities
and partly on account of the amusing and characteristic text
written for it by Asbjornsen. We all recall from our child-
hood this diverting incident of the examination, the scene
of which is laid in the ancient timber church of Hitterdal.
We have all been entertained by this ludicrous typical school-
master with his wizened body and conceited air and by the
tall overgrown farmer lad whose ignorance fills his pre-
ceptor with contemptuous pity — when all is said, a successful
attempt at bold comicality on the part of a painter whose
talents ordinarily would be described as lyric-sentimental.

Among his later works may be mentioned: A Norwegian
Funeral Feast, from 1854; A Fight at a Norwegian Rural
Wedding, from 1864, now in an English private gallery; and
The Fanatics, from 1866, now in the National Museum at
Stockholm. In these paintings, especially the last two, Tide-
mand reveals a surprising gift for dramatic presentation.
Here he has striven to create art in which the storms of life
roar and the waves of passion roll high. Adolf Tidemand
spent his life as a professor at the Academy in Diisseldorf;
he died during a summer visit to Christiania in 1876. Among
the generality of the people he is still probably our most-
beloved painter; and his popularly designed pictures have
contributed much toward opening the eyes of the many both
to art and to the people itself.

462

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Mountain Heights, by Hans Gude, 1857. In the National Gallery

With the name of Tidemand the name of Hans Gude is
always closely associated; so closely, in fact, that the two
are more often mentioned together than separately. Born in
Christiania in 1825, Gude was, it is true, eleven years
younger than Tidemand; but he came to Diisseldorf at a
very early age, and the two painters were soon intimately
joined in friendship and co-operation. Accordingly the
landscape painter Gude stands beside the figure painter Tide-
mand as the second of the two chief personages in our art
in the middle years of the century.

Before 1854, the year in which Gude was appointed a
professor at the Academy in Diisseldorf, he lived alter-
nately in Norway and in the Rhine city. During the summer
he invariably travelled in Norway, and on these journeys
he learned to know the various scenically beautiful regions
of his native land. In the summer of 1 843 he met Tidemand
on a jaunt through Sogn and Hardanger; in the autumn, he
writes, they returned to Diisseldorf, their portfolios
crammed with sketches. The following winter he painted

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

463

The Entrance to the Christiania Harbor, by Hans Gude. In the
National Gallery

the first of the pictures that have borne the title Mountain
Heights ; it was his debut, created a sensation, and was pur-
chased by Kunstforeningen in Christiania. At that time he
was only nineteen years of age. His next picture, which
made a stir at the exposition in Berlin and was sold there,
was A Norwegian Fjord in Sunshine. These subjects are
noteworthy. Gude's art was, during his entire life, princi-
pally occupied with the portrayal of Norwegian mountains
and fjords.

Between the years 1844 and 1858 there follows a long
series of paintings of mountain heights. Among them are
Mountain Heights at Sunrise, from 1855, and Mountain
Heights, from 1857, both of which are now in the National
Gallery. The last-named, particularly, belongs with the
best things Gude has produced, and indeed ranks among
the capital pieces in the landscape art of Norway. The
painting takes us up on the moors of a cold evening in
autumn. The long ridge of the plateau extends in toward
a distant chain of peaks upon which the fog lies heavily;
and, like an eye deserted by hope, the little mountain tarn

464

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Bridal Procession in Hardanger, by Adolf Tidemand and Hans
Gude. In the National Gallery

gazes out from that dark-blue embodied solitude lying rigid
beneath angry skies and chilled through by the icy gusts of
approaching night.

That Dahl's art made the strongest impression upon him
in youth Gude has himself confessed in the warmest terms
in his Recollections. Without doubt it would have been
extremely fortunate, as well for Norwegian art on the whole
as for Gude himself, if from the very first he had escaped
Diisseldorf and had immediately become a pupil of Dahl,
who was then at the height of his powers and was engaged
in teaching at Dresden. The fact is that in Gude's native
endowment there was a dangerous tendency toward theat-
rical spuriousness ; The Bridal Procession in Hardanger is
nothing else than reminiscences from an emotional evening
of tableaux and music at the theatre. Nor have his decora-
tive landscapes upon themes from Fridthjof's Saga, painted
in 1849 m tne dining-room at Oscarshal, any very profound
pictorial value.

At bottom, however, Gude was naturally a realist; little
by little he worked his way out of the mists of romanticism.

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 465

The decisive moment came in Gude's life as an artist when
it dawned upon him that the cleverness of Diisseldorf and
all its concessions to bad taste might be leading in the wrong
direction. At once he resolutely took flight, resigning his
professorship at the Academy and adventuring into the
world with uncertain prospects. In Wales, where he made
his first sojourn, he painted open air subjects the year round.
His charming Ivy Bridge was done in Wales in 1862. In
1864 he accepted an appointment as professor at the Acad-
emy in Karlsruhe. Here he exercised an active influence as
a teacher until 1875, when he was called to a professorship
at the Academy in Berlin; there he remained till his death
in 1903. Among well known Norwegian artists who were
pupils of Gude in Karlsruhe may be mentioned Otto Sinding,
Eilif Peterssen, Fritz Thaulow, Kitty Kielland, Fredrik Col-
lett, and Thorolf Holmboe.

Gude's art has a very broad reach. In his earlier pictures
the subjects are preferably drawn from mountain heights
and from the widely contrasted scenery of the Westland;
in later years, on the contrary, it was more often the less
pretentious natural features of eastern Norway, the East-
land, that attracted him. From lofty mountain expanses
to the farms of Smaalenene and the groves of Jarlsberg,
from the stormy shores of the ocean to the smooth bays and
inlets of the Christiania fjord, from the highlands of Wales
or the misty mountain regions of Scotland to the low, sandy
coast of Riigen and its long, even ground swells — these are
the paths that Gude's art has traversed.

With the year i860 begins that long series of pictures
from the seashore which thenceforth are a constant feature
of Gude's production till the very last. He is, to be sure,
still able to paint mountain and foliage and river; but the
sea fascinates him most. He loves to observe the life of
the waves, to watch the moods of the ocean through all the
transitions between storm and calm. What are no doubt
the best of his marines had their origin out on the Christiania
fjord on a beautiful day in summer. One of the most popu-
lar among them is called The Entrance to Christiania Har-

466 SCANDINAVIAN ART

bor, with Akershus and the Baerum Hills in the background.
It is a day of light, fair-weather clouds that half obscure the
sun, and a soft southern breeze is driving the white-caps at
a merry pace in toward the anchorage, while the veiled sun-
shine flows like molten silver over the undulating surface.

Paintings by Gude are to be found, besides the great
numbers in the public and private collections throughout
Norway, also in galleries in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and
Gothenburg, in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in Dresden,
Berlin, and many other German cities.

Gude was admittedly a hard worker, but his work seems
never to have given him difficulty, never to have caused him
pain. The charming was to him a natural form of expres-
sion. Selection, moderation, fear of extremes mark every-
thing that he has done. All that might disturb his own poise
and harmony he avoided. Therefore he avoided also the
impressionism which in the eighties penetrated from French
art into Norwegian; he remained a stranger to it and hostile
to it.

August Cappelen was only two years younger than Gude,
having been born in Skien in 1827 ; but he became a pupil of
Gude in Diisseldorf, and no other romanticist among Nor-
wegian painters has possessed a richer endowment or a
talent more instinct with personality than he. Nor has any
of them come nearer to attaining European reputation than
Cappelen. Yet after six years of constantly ascending de-
velopment, his artistic career, which promised the greatest
things, was cut short by death. Overtaxed and overworked,
he died in Diisseldorf in 1852, not more than twenty-five
years of age. In him our painting lost a great nature poet.

Cappelen's Forest Landscape, disclosing a Telemarken
waterfall, is painted with deep feeling and represents typical
romantic art. A heavily wooded mountain side, overlaid
with fog that hides all but a narrow passage of sky over-
head, opens to permit the flow of a river in spring freshet.
In the mossy wild, among layers of gigantic boulders and
rotting windfalls, two great pines are still standing with
broken crowns and lopped trunks. The reddish, tawny trunk

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

467

Forest Landscape in Telemarken, by August Cappelen. In the
National Gallery

contrasts sharply with the black depths of the forest; and it
raises defiantly aloft the small remnant of a crown, which
stretches out to one side like a woman's clipped hair waving
in the wind. In the foreground the cataract foams directly
toward the spectator and breaks the silence with its white
clamor. Diminutive men are pottering about in this vast
domain of nature, some lumberers occupied in loosening logs
that have become jammed in the water-course. Their toil
in those cold spring waters remains almost unheeded. They
are lost among the boulders, the sounds of their labor are
overborne by the roar of the mountain torrent, their little-
ness is accentuated manifold by the tallness of the pines.
They are there only to increase the wildness and solitude of
the scene, which from the picture strikes out upon the spec-
tator with the smell of pines and with mist and spray from
the icy waters of the stream. This scene from nature is
painted in deep-toned, juicy colors, tints of brown and velvet-
black grading up to the creamy-yellow, bubbling, soapy white
of the river foam.

468 SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Dying Forest Primeval is the title of another picture
of his, the most romantic in Norwegian art: mighty boulders
carried hither by glaciers in the morning of time, gigantic
prostrate pine trees in whose crowns tempests formerly have
raged, the decayed trunk which lightning once splintered
and struck with palsy at the root, the luxuriant moss untrod-
den by the foot of man, the rotting earth in which not even
swamp vegetation can grow, and above all this dead and
doomed nature the quiet, golden limpidity of an evening sky.
The painting is Cappelen's very last, unfinished work. It
has the effect of a mood of death, felt by himself. Both of
these pictures date from 1852, and are to be found in the
National Gallery. More eminent still are Cappelen's small
studies from nature, of which the gallery likewise possesses
a respectable number.

One Norwegian painter, who hitherto had been all but
unknown to the art-loving public, but who was drawn into
the light at the Jubilee Exposition in Christiania in 19 14 and
thus won a posthumous reputation which certainly neither
he nor any of his contemporaries ever dreamed of, is the
landscapist Lars Hertervig of Stavanger. Hertervig was
born in Tysvaer, near Stavanger, in 1830; he spent some
years as a journeyman painter in Stavanger, but came in
1850 to Diisseldorf, where he was a pupil in the Academy
at the same time as August Cappelen. Early in his career,
however, his health was broken, and as a consequence he
became a prey to mental afflictions that resulted in an incur-
able melancholia. Already in 1852 illness compelled him
to return to his home in Stavanger, where he passed the rest
of his life in the most straitened circumstances, partly as an
artisan and partly as an artist. In landscape painting he
seems for a time to have had a certain repute in Stavanger.
When, however, near the close of the eighties, Alexander
Kielland in a most warmly sympathetic article drew atten-
tion to the aged stricken artist, Hertervig was almost for-
gotten; and he died in the poor-house at Stavanger in 1902.

Hertervig's landscape art is the product of a dreamer's
fantasy, and yet is brought about through close association

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

469

Ancient Pine-forest, by Lars Hertervig. Privately owned in

Stavanger

with nature. At first his work did not have any special
marks of individuality. The fjord pictures from the Diis-
seldorf period and the immediately succeeding period have
the customary dark and theatrical coloring that distinguishes
so many other men of that school; or, he would paint roman-
tic wood landscapes somewhat in the vein of Cappelen, dark
and golden, but softer, more veiled, and as it were steaming
beneath a vaporous sky. As time goes by a strong personal
feeling for nature enters into his expression and removes it
farther from the tendency of the school, not, however, in the
direction of naturalism but rather in the direction of a
species of clairvoyant nature mysticism. His coloring be-
comes hardened in deep, usually sombre and cold tones in
which blues prevail, and his draughtsmanship in the por-
trayal, let us say, of solitary, gnarled pines upon a stony slope,
may at times assume an almost supernatural energy of design.
His paintings in this kind are informed with a peculiarly

470 SCANDINAVIAN ART

dark and cold melancholy not to be found in the work of
any other. Yet there remain from his hand also luminous
pictures of rock-bound roadsteads in which with the sureness
of the sleep-walker he has brought about wonderfully expres-
sive color harmonies in blues, greys, and browns, otherwise
wholly unknown to the art of Dusseldorf. And finally, in a
state of isolation and ecstacy, this half dilettante painter
has produced Westland fjord landscapes of a dreamy and
transfigured unreality which none the less has much more in
common with nature than all the calculated studio effects of
Dusseldorf art.

In that Westland of his the stricken man spent his days,
lonely and unknown, and yet developed an individual style in
which romantic sentiment is united with a delicate, clear
scale of tints, almost like water-colors — his version of the
plein-air method. His favorite subject is an expanse of
clouds that in quiet, damp weather tower up into banks,
reflecting their image in water, and fading away illimitably
toward the source of light. One cannot escape the impres-
sion that this landscape art is based upon religious rapture.

An artist of striking peculiarities, who hitherto perhaps
has not received due attention, is the painter of sea-pieces,
Peder Balke, who was born in 1804 and died in 1887. Yet
his pictures appeal- to our interest for reasons wholly dif-
ferent from those that govern in the case of Hertervig.
Balke's facile and arrogantly handled marines and small
studies from Nordland in nearly monotone grey-green are
without parallel in Norwegian painting, but reveal patent
English influence. He was no doubt the first Norwegian
artist who used the palette-knife, and his treatment in gen-
eral is striking and piquant; but the effect is too much that
of external virtuosity to be of more than merely technical
importance.

Nearly contemporaneous with Cappelen was the land-
scape painter Johan Fredrik Eckersberg, who was born in
Drammen in 1822. Among all the men trained in Diissel-
dorf he occupies a distinctive position, since after about two
years of study he made the firm resolution of returning to

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 471

From Jotunheimen, by Johan Fredrik Eckersberg. In the National

Gallery

the land of his birth and of forging his future there by
painting the nature of Norway on Norwegian soil. In
choice of themes and in character Eckersberg's art often
seems determined by the influence of Gude; yet Eckersberg
has a cooler, drier, less graceful talent. Mountain regions
became Eckersberg's special domain. His large picture
dating from 1866, now in the National Gallery, From Jotun-
heimen, with the naked expanses stretching in toward Glitre-
tind, which lies bathed in sheer morning light, represents his
manner very well. A particular significance in the artistic
development of our people attaches to Eckersberg as the
teacher of younger generations of painters. Till the time
of his death in 1870 he conducted at Christiania an art school
in which he was himself enthusiastically active as an
instructor.

A typical Diisseldorf painter is Morten Miiller, who was
born in 1828 and died in 191 1. He showed exceptional
brilliance in the portrayal of the Norwegian pine forests.
In a great number of larger and smaller woodland pictures
he gave evidence of pompous decorative ability in which
there is decisiveness of stroke and juiciness of coloring but
no very profound sense of subtle values. In the National

472 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Gallery, it should be added, he is represented by an effective
picture on a theme from an entirely different source, A
Stormy Day on the Hardanger Fjord, dated 1866, and also
by a large canvas, The Landing of Sinclair in Romsdal,
dated 1876, the last of which he painted in collaboration
with Tidemand.

The pictures of Erik Bodom, whose life spanned the years
between 1829 and 1879, had somewhat the same tendency
toward the romantic in landscape art, while Christian Wex-
elsen, who lived from 1830 till 1883, in gentler vein painted
the Eastland summer and the natural features about the
Christiania fjord.

The Diisseldorf school also has a specialist of some rank
as an animal painter, namely Anders Askevold, born in rural
Sondmore in 1855. The life of the mountain dairies or
saeters, with which he was familiar from childhood, became
his particular field. He paints the cattle on their way to
the mountain pastures, in ferry barges, or on the level graz-
ing grounds at the crossings of streams and mountain lakes;
always he presents them in groups or by droves, not by single
types or individuals as Paul Potter pictured animals for the
sake of their character, but by whole herds, lowing and
jangling their bells as they seek the water-courses at noon
or at evening are'driven full-uddered, frisking and trotting,
into the saeter enclosures.

An excellent painter of animals, who belongs only by
half to Norwegian art, was J. C. Dahl's only son, Siegwald
Dahl, of Dresden. He was born in 1827 and died in 1902.
His training he received in Paris and more notably in Lon-
don, where Landseer's celebrated animal pictures influenced
him especially. Siegwald Dahl on occasion also painted very
good portraits.

It is significant of Norwegian art in the nineteenth century
that landscape painting has a disproportionate place as com-
pared with figure painting. The foreign public for which
our Germanized Norwegian painters did a great part of
their work demanded above all Norwegian landscapes —
grand and impressive natural scenes from this remote and

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 473

remarkable land. The people of Norway were able to
arouse a certain ethnographic curiosity abroad only when
they appeared, as they do on Tidemand's canvases, in their
primitive cabins, decked in particolored national costumes,
and exhibiting the peculiar manners and usages inherited
from pre-Christian antiquity. Everyday life among us in
the present seemed too drab as subject matter for these
artists only half rooted in the home soil.

Popular as Tidemand's portrayal of the life of the people
really became abroad as well as at home, there were not
many imitators. It was more among Swedish than among
Norwegian men of the Diisseldorf school that the influence
of his art was felt. Almost the only one to continue Tide-
mand's traditions as a painter of the populace was Knut
Bergslien, a peasant lad born in Voss in 1827, who also
attempted historic subjects from the saga age. His best
known picture is one entitled, Birkebein Ski-runners Carry-
ing Haakon Haakonsson as a Child over Filefjeld. The
same year in which he did this work, 1869, Bergslien re-
turned home and took over Eckersberg's school of painting
in Christiania, where a number of the younger talents re-
ceived their instruction in the grammar of the art.

A few other figure painters are, it is true, to be found
among the landscapists of Diisseldorf. They were, how-
ever, inclined to go elsewhere for their schooling, and were
indeed the first who went in earnest to Paris. This was the
case with the figure painters Arbo, Isaachsen, and Sundt-
Hansen.

The historical painter P. N. Arbo was born in 1831 and
died in 1892. His best efforts took shape in a large dramatic
composition on the subject of Welhaven's poem Asgaards-
reien; this picture, dating from 1872, is captivating and im-
posing by its theme and by the academic skill with which the
design, crowded as it is with figures, has been managed. The
artist has not succeeded, however, in imprinting upon his
presentation that stamp of an Old Norse myth which one
associates with the idea of Thor's wild hunt as it rages
through the air on nights when earth groans beneath tern-

474

SCANDINAVIAN ART

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 475

pests. Less seriously by far one is inclined to take the beau-
tiful shield maiden on the snorting black charger in the
colossal picture called Valkyrie, painted before Arbo had
gone through the strict schooling he received during a
lengthy stay in Paris. In later years this discerning and
cultivated artist put aside such bravura numbers and devoted
himself by preference to the representation of his favorite
animal, the horse, in small, delicately finished cabinet pieces.
Arbo was for many years an influential member of the board
of directors of the National Gallery and of the council of
the Arts and Crafts School. Among those who continued
Tidemand's tradition in treating the life of the people both
Isaachsen and Sundt-Hansen may after a fashion be counted.
Yet neither of them can be classed absolutely in the Diissel-
dorf school, since both received the strongest impressions
during years of study at other places.

According to the taste of our time and its conceptions of
art, no other among the older figure painters is so interesting
as Olaf Isaachsen, who was born in Mandal in 1835 and
died in Christianssand in 1893. Not only his gift for color
and his aspiring romanticism make him an engrossing per-
sonality in the generation to which he belonged, but also the
circumstance that as the first disciple of French painting in
its great period he brought into Norwegian painting a new
and valuable note. Unfortunately he did not become the
factor in the art life of his country which his talent and his
culture fitted him to be. At too early a juncture he broke
off the contact with French art and fell back upon Diissel-
dorf ; and when he returned to Norway, it was only to isolate
himself in Christianssand and his beloved Saetersdal instead
of making himself felt in the artistic awakening in the capital
during the eighties. His production, moreover, is of ex-
tremely uneven quality, and very seldom, or never, has he
been able to summon his energies for works of large scope.
The really valuable material is in his studies, which often
are excellent. Isaachsen began as a pupil of Tidemand in
Diisseldorf ; but later he went to Paris, where he became a
pupil of Couture and at the same time was strongly touched

476

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Sastersdal Interior, by Olaf Isaachsen. In the National Gallery

by the influence of Courbet. The unusual teaching gifts and
technical knowledge of Couture provided the best possible
foundation for Isaachsen's art, while the rugged pictorial
genius of Courbet gave to it a breadth and freshness which
no contemporary Norwegian painter dreamed of. There
are certain studies by Isaachsen that positively suggest the
great Delacroix's name. His boldly designed Sastersdal
Interior, with its solid, heavy furniture in the fashion of the
sagas, is reproduced here. In the National Gallery there is
a small picture by him of a girl, dressed in grey, beneath a
lilac in bloom, a painting whose voluminous coloring is dis-
tinctly reminiscent of Courbet. During the hegemony of
naturalism among us Isaachsen receded wholly into the back-
ground as an artistic personality, and was almost forgotten.
Later tendencies in our art have raised him once more to
honor and distinction.

The one who most directly continued Tidemand's por-
trayal of country life, though of totally different tempera-
ment, was Carl Sundt-Hansen, who was born in Stavanger
in 1 841 and died in Saetersdalen in 1907. He went through

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

477

A Hardened Criminal, by Carl Sundt-Hansen. In the Bergen Picture

Gallery

an apprenticeship in Copenhagen and afterward under
Vautier in Diisseldorf ; later, however, he proceeded to Paris
in order to refine the handicraft of his art. The greater
part of his time he spent abroad, first for many years in
Stockholm, and subsequently in Copenhagen; but toward the
close of his life homesickness led him up into Saetersdal,
where he settled down and passed the remaining interval,
far from the madding crowd.

Sundt-Hansen's gifts are quite unlike Tidemand's. His
narrative powers are not so lively in and prompt in picturing

478

SCANDINAVIAN ART

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 479

a situation; nor has he Tidemand's vigorous ability in com-
position or his easily awakened lyric sense. By way of com-
pensation his treatment of humanity plumbs profounder
psychological depths, and more frequently reveals a quiet,
reserved melancholy, a sobriety without pathos and without
sentimentality. Sundt-Hansen's art depends entirely upon
draughtsmanship, directed by a penetrating perception of
form and refined by an untiring, minute attention to detail.
Since his chromatic faculty is almost nil, his finical and
unimpassioned execution may at times border upon the pho-
tographic. Still the cool air of reality that often breathes
from his delineations has an invigorating effect after the
sultry atelier romanticism of the Diisseldorf group. Sundt-
Hansen's best known and most popular work is the little pic-
ture called Under Arrest, which shows a youthful criminal
in irons spending his last hour of repentance with the old
prison chaplain, a scene that moves the beholder by reason
of the sombre, low tones in which the story is told. Less
known, but perhaps even more impressive and powerful in
portraying the human subject, is another painting with a
related theme from prison life, reproduced here under the
title A Hardened Criminal. On the whole, Sundt-Hansen's
art is disposed to occupy itself with rather gloomy subjects.
Frequently it is concerned with death, and in several of the
pictures death has some connection with crime. In the devel-
opment of art in Norway Sundt-Hansen's grave realism
forms a distinct transition between Tidemand's romanticism
and Werenskiold's naturalistic portrayal of country life.

Among landscape painters Ludvig Munthe and Amaldus
Nielsen link the older era with the new. After Dahl and
Gude, Ludvig Munthe is of all Norwegian landscapists
probably the best known abroad. He was born in 1841 and
died in 1896. Although he learned his art in Diisseldorf
and lived there through life, this master establishes a con-
nection in the course of Norwegian art between the anti-
quated romantic school of Diisseldorf and the naturalistic
movement that came out of France. Old Dutch masters in

480 SCANDINAVIAN ART

landscape and newer French painters taught him to discern
what was simple and unassuming in nature and to refrain
from all trickery in the matter of subject. Munthe, even
in his day, saw that the silhouette of a naked patch of under-
brush against an autumnal sky or a newly broken path in
melting snow may be more suitable as a theme than the
whole array of natural prospects, peaks, and glaciers that
appeal to the tourist's eye. For Munthe had the painter's
vision which discovers lineal effects in the plainest motifs,
and, like the chromatic adept he really was, he had the requi-
site skill to modulate all gradations of the monotonous greys
and browns. The damp, cold west wind of a December
day, the cloggy snow along the beach, the woollen sky and the
dirty sea, people pottering about frost-bitten in the twilight
or hurrying home toward the red glimmering of lights in
the fishermen's huts — all these things are excellently con-
joined to create a mood and a unified picturesque tone in
the tepid, grey painting entitled Winter Evening on the
Norwegian Goast. This picture, which was shown at the
Universal Exposition of 1878 and there received a first
medal, has been presented to the National Gallery by the
artist himself. Ludvig Munthe had a decisive influence in
developing a feeling for nature in his highly gifted kinsman
Gerhard Munthe, who during his early years studied under
his uncle in Diisseldorf.

Another representative of the transition from German
atelier to Norwegian nature is Otto Sinding, who was born
at Kongsberg in 1842 and died as a professor at Munich
in 1909. The well composed and effective picture From
Reine in Lofoten, with its lofty, snow-clad mountains, the
winter fishing fleet on the grey fjord, and the little snow-
bound fishing village, is a good example of his manner. In
this instance, too, a grey, subdued color scheme prevails.

Still another transitional figure in Norwegian landscape
art, yet very different from those mentioned above, is
Amaldus Nielsen. He was born at Mandal in 1838, and is
now living in Christiania as the dean of Norway's artists.
Nielsen was a pupil of Gude in Diisseldorf and in Karlsruhe;

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

481

From Reine in Lofoten, by Otto Sinding. In the National Gallery

since he returned home in 1869, however, and settled down
in his native land, he has faithfully followed that safe path
which Professor Dahl in his day called the nature method.
Before painting in the open was established as a principle by
the naturalists, Amaldus Nielsen used to set up his easel in
the fields and work with his eye upon nature to the extent
permitted by his subjects; and his subjects are the bare
granite knolls, the small houses of the pilots, and the capri-
cious fjord of that southern region in which he was born.
This son of a Mandal skipper has become above all others
the painter of southern Norway, the so-called Southland.
He knows how to portray the fjord, now lying smooth as a
mirror to the leeward of sunny islands, now darkening be-
neath a fresh breeze from the open sea, now rolling gently
in morning haze with a lofty, fair-weather sky overhead.
His best known picture is Morning in Ny Hellesund, now
in the National Gallery. This morning is so transparently
clear that vision would extend for miles if those red islands
did not close in to form a narrow sound. A boat glides
easily over the crystalline water, and one seems to hear the
splash of the oars across the smooth expanse of the outer

482

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Morning in Ny Hellesund, by Amaldus Nielsen.

Gallery

In the National

harbor, while the morning sun climbs above the red stony
hillsides and the chill of night is borne away upon cold re-
ceding shadows.

It is noticeable in Amaldus Nielsen that he is of the old
camp, that he has been a pupil of Gude, and that he has a
studio schooling behind him. In Fredrik Collett this is

Mesna, by Fredrik Collett. In the National Gallery

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 483

no longer noticeable. Of the same age as Nielsen, Collett,
himself a pupil of Gude and trained in Diisseldorf and Karls-
ruhe, was one of the first of our open-air painters, wholly
modern, wholly naturalistic.

Fredrik Collett was born in Christiania in 1839. He
came under the tutelage of Gude, first in Diisseldorf and
later in Karlsruhe. He studied also in Denmark and visited
Paris; but early in the eighties he established a permanent
residence in Norway. Among the naturalists of the eighties
Collett was the oldest, and his production in its continuity
proves that he belonged to a period of transition. Yet the
artistic convictions he developed in the course of years were
clear and firm. By persevering energy he brought his art up
to the notable degree of independence and maturity which
it possessed at his death. No Norwegian painter has had
a more manly profile.

Collett was one of a school of colorists, but his chief
strength lay in the plastic treatment of landscape. Profess-
ing the naturalistic dogma that art is a transcript of nature,
he strove intensely for the objective. There is, however,
unmistakable temperament in his art, and with compelling
hand he retains his hold upon nature till it yields a resultant
of style. Collett's field of study is the winter of eastern
Norway, with its great banks of snow and half-frozen
streams. He chose his themes principally from the Mesna
River near Lillehammer, where he steadfastly continued his
work out of doors up to a very great age and where also
death came to him in 19 13. His Mesna pictures have a
masculine, almost harsh character, and are compactly de-
signed with massively modelled contrasts between the white
expanses of snow and the blue-black pools and open rapids.
His masterpiece is the monumental composition entitled
Mesna, dated April 1891, now in the National Gallery.

Ill

THE MUNICH SCHOOL

FOR the younger generation of Norwegian painters the
importance of Diisseldorf as the center of a school came
to an end when Gude left that city in 1862. In its stead
Karlsruhe developed into the seat of learning, at any rate for
the landscape painters, who flocked about Gude when two
years later he assumed the leading position at the Academy
in the capital city of Baden. Already toward the close of
the sixties, meanwhile, the prestige of Munich in the art life
of Germany was a settled matter; and from all parts of the
world eager youth in search of knowledge — young Norwe-
gians among them — streamed toward Piloty's and Diez's
studios. For the second time in a century Munich had its
period of artistic efflorescence. That Munich would give
fresher and more. vigorous stimulus than Diisseldorf was
only natural. The larger aspect of affairs, the more abun-
dant art life in which the ranks of the painters were recruited
from the most various elements in all corners of the earth,
and representing the greatest differences in artistic tend-
encies; furthermore, the prominent individual artists and
teachers in the city itself, the voluminous collections of older
art in the Pinakothek, and the Schack Gallery with its pic-
tures by Schwind and Feuerbach and its early Bocklins;
and, finally, the large international exhibitions of modern art
in 1869 and 1879 — a^ these things in combination neces-
sarily offered facilities for development and served to keep
men's talents in a state of tension.

Among the Norwegian artists who went during these
years to Munich and received their first training there may

484

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 485

be mentioned the brothers Gronvold, Olav Rusti, Oscar
Wergeland, and Ekenaes. They were the vanguard. Later
came Otto Sinding, Eilif Peterssen, and Hans Heyerdahl,
Erik Werenskiold and Gerhard Munthe, Harriet Backer
and Kitty Kielland, Jacob Gloersen and Theodor Kittelsen;
further, Karl Uchermann, Elisabeth Sinding, and Asta Nor-
regaard. Still later appeared representatives of a new gen-
eration, namely Fredrik Kolsto, Sven Jorgensen, Jacob
Somme, and Jacob Bratland. The greater number of those
named became pupils of Lofftz. To these young painters,
who for the rest of their lives faced the prospect of working
in a land such as Norway, where they would have to recon-
cile themselves to the absolute lack of good examples of
older art, the opportunities for study in the Pinakothek at
Munich were of inestimable value. The culture and refine-
ment of taste which were thus added to their native endow-
ments during these impressionable years gave that inward
security which culture is capable of providing against seasons
of ferment and strife.

Meanwhile the air in Munich was full of disquieting
vibrations. Without doubt such of the Norwegian pupils
at the Academy as thought at all deeply, Werenskiold espe-
cially, were conscious of something untenable at the bottom
of the dominating academic tendencies. Routine was fastening
its grip round about them and even beginning to seize upon
their own circle. Not a few seem to have experienced a stifling
sensation and to have realized the desirability of getting
away. Nevertheless, it was not till 1878 that the general
migration commenced. Eilif Peterssen returned to Norway
and remained at home one winter, whereupon he went to
Rome and there made his first full surrender to realism.
Heyerdahl hastened to Paris, where he scored a success at
the Universal Exposition with his picture, Adam and Eve.
Harriet Backer also removed to Paris. In July, 1879, the
International Art Exhibition was opened in Munich. The
productions of the Frenchmen had the greatest effect on the
entire world of art in Munich. The French made such an
impression on Erik Werenskiold that he sent out the winged

486

SCANDINAVIAN ART

word that the day of Munich was past. The countersign ot
naturalism had, so to say, been floating in mid-air. It was
necessary only that some one should speak it. The French
group at the Exhibition did speak it; and they were strongly
seconded by men like Menzel and Liebermann.

In the combative generation of painters that follows,
Eilif Peterssen and Hans Heyerdahl have a somewhat
peculiar place. Both are in a way transitional figures, im-
pressionable natures who have been under the influence of
two totally distinct artistic tendencies, and therefore show a
sort of dual quality in their production.

Eilif Peterssen was born in Christiania in 1852. In the
autumn of 1873 ne went to Munich to take up historical
painting under Diez. He became at once a so-called master-
pupil, and with the guidance of Diez painted in 1 874 his first
picture, The Death of Korfitz Ulfeldt, which is now in New-
castle. Shortly afterward he left the Academy, rented a
studio of his own, and attacked his large work, Christian II
Signing the Death Sentence of Torben Oxe, which was fin-
ished in 1876 and purchased for the gallery of the city of

Christian II Signing the Death Sentence of Torben Oxe, by Eilif
Peterssen. In the Museum at Breslau

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 487

Breslau, where it still remains. Christian II was a great
achievement on the part of an artist only twenty-three years
of age; at one stroke he gained a reputation in Munich and
throughout Germany. In a psychologically subtle portrait of
Christian II by an old Dutch painter, in the Copenhagen gal-
lery, Peterssen found his point of departure for the delinea-
tion of the king. High-strung and sensitive, passionate in
feeling and yet cold in revenge, he sits with the fatal decree
before him, deaf and dumb to assailing importunities. He
seems totally lost in memories of the young girl whom he
loved and whom merciless death tore from his side. The
queen and the ladies in waiting are interceding on behalf of
the distinguished noble who has been selected as a sacrifice;
on their knees they implore mercy for the innocent victim ;
the queen beseeches the king with caresses. From the other
side, meanwhile, his evil genius, the crafty and vindictive
Didrik Slaghask, presses forward and silently holds out a
pen for the signature. The subject is intensely dramatic,
almost too dramatic, and treated with histrionic explicitness
and suspense. The composition is well handled, and the
execution betrays the capacity of the true painter.

Even at this youthful period Eilif Peterssen came under
the influence, in the old Munich Pinakothek, of earlier art,
which he studied and copied with admiring assiduity. Here
he laid the foundation for his solid technical insight and
developed his taste. Especially was he attracted by the
sonorous colors of the Venetians. He adapted his own
coloring to accord with Titian and his contemporaries, while
he improved his sense of form particularly by contact with
Holbein.

In may respects this sojourn in Munich constituted a bril-
liant phase of Peterssen's career. He soon made a name for
himself both among the artists and with the public, sold all
his pictures off the easel at high prices, received medals wher-
ever he exhibited, and in sum had made good progress
toward European reputation already in his twenties. Nev-
ertheless, in 1879 he permanently forsook Munich. He had
taken alarm at his experiences there. In a letter he explains

488 SCANDINAVIAN ART

that things were becoming too easy for him, that technique
and the choice of pigments suggested themselves with dis-
quieting facility, and that he had before his eyes too many
examples of men with respectable talents who had gone
under, lost their personalities, and succumbed to glittering
temptations, not the least of which was the ready-made
formula of commercialized art.

On reviewing what Eilif Peterssen painted during this
period, as, for instance, the beautiful portrait of Harriet
Backer or the portrait in the National Gallery of the woman
with the lovely hands, Fru Andrea Kleen, nee Gram, one
finds nothing to awake misgivings. The suggestion of the
tone of the old masters which graces these pictures by no
means carries the stamp of shallow imitation. Working in
a spirit of veneration for the old masters, the painter has
seen and caught the quality of style in his models and thus
has given to these portraits a certain distinction and exqui-
siteness which otherwise is rare in Norwegian art.

Strangely enough, it was on the classical soil of Italy that
Eilif Peterssen developed into a realist in the modern sense
and into an open-air painter. While all his comrades were
assembled in Paris, he was sunning himself in Italy and there
doing some of his best work. To this early Mediterranean
sojourn we owe the painting, replete with figures and care-
fully executed throughout, of Italian peasants taking their
siesta at an inn, painted at Sora in 1880, and the large street
scene from the Piazza Montanara, a motley crowd in a
Roman square, done in 1882. At Rome, in 1881, Peterssen
finished in addition the large altar-piece for the Jakobskirke
in Christiania, called the Adoration of the Shepherds, prob-
ably his most significant performance. To it contribute in an
impressive way a powerful grasp of reality, a persevering
study of models, and vital influences from the older art of
the galleries.

When Eilif Peterssen returned to Christiania in 1883 it
was with the fixed purpose of remaining in Norway. During
the fiery strife which was going on at that time between the
artists on the one side and the reactionary directors of Kunst-

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

489

Piazza Montanara, by Eilif Peterssen. Privately owned in Fredriks-

hald

foreningen together with a rather uncomprehending public
on the other, it fell to the lot of Peterssen to act as a medi-
ator between the parties. His early maturity, the nature
of his gifts, his reputation abroad, and his gracious person-
ality pointed him out, among the entire body of artists, for
universal confidence and therefore led to his being selected

490

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of the Poet Arne Garborg, by Eilif Peterssen. In the
National Gallery

when negotiations were on foot or when threatening con-
flicts were to be averted. As a member of juries and of a
variety of committees, of the directorate of the National
Gallery, and of the representative committee of the artists,
Eilif Peterssen has left a great impression on the public
phases of our art life, next to Werenskiold perhaps the
greatest. Eilif Peterssen executed his masterpiece in por-
traiture when he painted Arne Garborg in 1884. The very

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 491

arrangement of the picture, the natural and thoughtful pose
of the sitter is captivating; and one does not easily forget the
large, sorrowful eyes, like the eyes of a hart, which gaze out
from that haggard face.

Hans Heyerdahl, who was born in 1857, came as a youth
of seventeen to Munich and there studied under Linden-
schmidt. This conscientious and high-minded teacher soon
appreciated his brilliant gifts and turned them in the right
direction. By serious study and diligent practice the young
pupil in a short time became an excellent draughtsman, espe-
cially in portraiture, with an animated sense for details of
form, in the spirit of Holbein. In Munich Eilif Peterssen
and Hans Heyerdahl, his junior by five years, soon grew to
be close comrades. Later in life, to be sure, they were
widely separated, but in the history of art the two will always
occupy places near each other. Men of talent both, mature
at an early age, colorists and worshippers of beauty, easily
influenced and open-minded, particularly as regards older
art, gifted with lightness of touch and ambitious for tech-
nical mastery, they soon took a position in Munich as equals
and side by side.

After three years of study it was possible for Heyerdahl
in 1878 to send from Munich to the Universal Exposition in
Paris a large picture which has continued to rank as one of
the principal works of the artist and, for that matter, as
one of the ripest and most remarkable achievements in
Norwegian painting The composition presents Adam and
Eve Being Driven Forth from Paradise, two nude figures
seen against a background of threatening darkness. They
are beautifully painted, Eve especially, in soft golden flesh
tints. The piece, however, is no mere technical study. It
carries its own challenging message, expressed in the figure
of Adam, a very young lad, hardly more than a child, with a
fine head of dark hair. They have sinned, those two; but
the glance he directs back toward the lowering heavens
burns with rage, and his hands are clenched in impotent de-
fiance of that Providence which thrusts its own children
without the gates of the garden of bliss. There is youthful

492

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Adam and Eve Being Driven Forth from Paradise, by Hans Heyerdahl.
Privately owned in Paris

revolt in this work by a man of twenty. The picture
naturally created the greatest sensation, both among artists
and with the public, received a prize, and was at once sold

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

493

The Letter, by Hans Heyerdahl. In the Art Society at Kristianssand

to a Greek art collector in Paris. Not a bad success for an
academy pupil ! The young master lost no time whatever
in quitting the Academy and hastening to Paris.

Other works from Heyerdahl's Munich period, too, such
as the Penitent Magdalene in Rasmus Meyer's collection,
and portraits of Eilif Peterssen and of Skredsvig from the
year 1878, now in the National Gallery, will remain as little
masterpieces from the hand of a youthful genius. Imme-
diately after his arrival in Paris he painted his Italian Girl,

494

SCANDINAVIAN ART

with its fine silver tone reminding of Corot, and also the
austere and delicate full-face portrait of Laura Gundersen,
executed with untiring attention to modeling, after the
manner of Holbein.

In general, the intense study of the old masters and
their technique which Heyerdahl prosecuted in youth deter-
mined his develop-
ment and has left
itsmarksupon
his production
throughout. When
he found himself in
Paris, the focus of
modern art, he was
so far from cool-
ing in his passion
for the old masters
that, on the con-
trary, he settled
down in the Lou-
vre to copy a num-
ber of them. His
copies of Bellini,
Raphael, Rem-
brandt, and Ribera
are among the best
works of this kind
in our time.
Heyerdahl's greatest and most significant performance
from the early eighties was nevertheless the large figure
composition which he painted in Norway and exhibited at
the Salon of 1882 under the title The Dying Child. The
story is simple and sincere, and the presentation has eminent
pictorial qualities. The cold daylight upon the half-clothed
figure of the mother with her disheveled hair and despair-
ing face is made to stand out in masterly fashion against
the twilight of the room, in which beneath the rays of the
night lamp the doctor bends over the cradle listening to the

Portrait of the Actress Laura Gundersen, by
Hans Heyerdahl. In the National Gallery

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 495

faint breathing of the child. With this painting Heyer-
dahl's fortune was assured. The picture was bought by
the French Government, and the artist received a Grand
Prix de Florence which had been offered by the periodical,
I'Art.

Heyerdahl's studies in Italy covered a span from 1882 till
1884. In Florence, where he diligently continued his tech-
nical exercises upon the old masters, he formed an inti-
mate acquaintance with Bocklin. This association with the
German romanticist came to have a considerable influence on
the further development of Heyerdahl, not wholly to his ad-
vantage. Through it he was to a certain extent led away
from that path into which his French training had carried
him, and led into a round of primitive Germanic myth-
ological subjects for the treatment of which his intelligence
did not suffice and his individuality could ill adapt itself.
Meanwhile, before these ideas gained the upper hand he
had experienced at home in Norway, in 1885 and the im-
mediately following years, a period of flourishing produc-
tivity during which portraits, landscapes, and nudes flow
from his brush, and during which he asserts himself in
general as one of the most gifted painters in the history
of Norwegian art.

In winter he executed portraits in Christiania, and in sum-
mer landscapes with figures and nudes at Aasgaardsstrand.
To this happy season belongs the double portrait, now in
the National Gallery, arranged in the Venetian manner:
The Two Sisters, the ruddy and the blond beauty of the
fishing village. In the middle eighties appeared also his best
studies in the nude. He has painted bathing boys and girls,
often seen against a background of salt blue sea, in which
there is a golden amber tone and a luscious sweetness in
form that might tempt one to call Heyerdahl the Renoir of
the North.

Unfortunately Heyerdahl's art has not always had the
direct inspiration from nature which marks these pictures.
He has also turned out casual things, fleeting landscape
moods and cloying studies of heads, which properly belong

496 SCANDINAVIAN ART

in family magazines. Particularly in the case of commis-
sions for portraits, where the sitters have not sufficiently
interested him, he has succumbed to the temptation to lay a
flattering unction upon his all too supple brush. The
good things and the excellent, however, which the eye of a
refined painter who loved beauty has caught for us to look
upon will in themselves be enough to maintain for him a
long time that honored place in the history of our art which
is rightfully his. It must also be reckoned to Heyerdahl's
credit as an artist that he gave fruitful stimulus to the genius
of Edvard Munch. Heyerdahl died in 19M3.

THE BEGINNING OF FRENCH INFLUENCE

THAT period in the history of Norwegian art which
has been discussed so far was one in which Norwegian
painters received their training in Germany and were
dependent upon German art. This connection was broken,
little by little, about the time when the Universal Exposition
of 1878 in Paris and the subsequent exposition in Munich
demonstrated conclusively the preeminence of French art.
With this turn of events there begins a new phase of the de-
velopment of art in Norway, when impressions from France
outweigh those from Germany, when our young artists in
a body go to Paris to see and learn, and afterward come
back to live and work in their native land. The period of
emigration is at an end, and the wholly national period in
our art history begins. Herewith also romanticism is at an
end, and naturalism begins. Norwegian painting from this
time forth is no longer under the sign of German neo-ro-
manticism but under the sign of French naturalism. This
was the conception of art that became dominant also among
us in the eighties as soon as it had been adapted to nature
in Norway and had been fashioned to accord with the Nor-
wegian temperament.

It must be allowed that it was not always the great and
epoch-making French artists who had the most direct in-
fluence on our young Norwegian painters, who in the closing
years of the seventies and on into the eighties, thronged to
Paris. As teachers they had the more subordinate celebrities
who were attached to the art schools, realists like Bonnat,

497

498 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Roll, Cormon, or even academicians of the commonplace
type of Bouguereau. Still the art traditions and the great
technical eminence of France did not fail to assert them-
selves. It will perhaps be regarded as surprising even to-day
that it was a grey realist like Bastien-Lepage whom the
young Norsemen admired particularly, and that corypheuses
of the Salon like Carolus Durand, Roll, and Cazin counted
votaries among them side by side with or even before Manet,
Renoir, and the impressionists. One must, however, take
into account the inexperience of the youthful painters, their
German prepossessions, and as well the prejudice with which
even official France received its own true pioneers in art.
Daumier's painting was still unknown; the inspired talent
of Delacroix was by reason of its romantic subject matter
precluded from the interest of the juvenile naturalists;
Manet was just in process of breaking his own path, and
Renoir was too much of a Frenchman for the Northern
students or else a total stranger to them. None the less,
the seeds scattered by genius were budding all about them
or flying like motes through the air. Deep is the soil of
culture in France and plentiful the increase. And art life
in Paris had seasonable weather for its thriving during those
good years.

One French artist there was, nevertheless, who had a
direct influence upon the young Norwegians through the
range of his subjects, his straightforward style, and his
great heart — the painter of peasants, Millet. Here was a
delineation of the life of the people and an art of the
peasantry totally different from Tidemand's Sunday idylls.
Millet's achievement was that of seeing men at their work
and in contact with the soil from which they sprang. There-
by a suggestion of the eternal came into art which was not
there before. It was not the peasant for his own sake and
his rural occupations that this master sought to portray,
though he depicted all of these occupations — the labors of
the fields and of the woods, the life of herdsmen, tillage
and housework — but he did seek to portray man in concord
with his toil, as he expresses it himself. Herein Millet saw

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 499

all beauty. Beauty, he writes to his friend Sensier, has not
its seat in the features; it is reflected from the figure as a
whole, in whatsoever accords with a man's tasks.

The landscape art of Corot also made an immediate im-
pression on the young Northern students, both Norwegians
and Swedes. Those blonde, cool landscapes, wrapped as it
were in silver tissue, with their dewy greenswards and those
ancient willows bending over a pearl-grey lake and silhouet-
ting themselves darkly and softly upon the atmosphere !
What the youthful strangers saw and admired in Corot,
besides the poetic content, was the fine sense of values with
which the colors are toned down and blended into harmony.
Corot was the first conscious painter of atmosphere in
modern art; he beheld objects immersed in the atmospheric
sea. This faculty made his palette what it was, with its
milky, blue-green tints and its unending scale of greys. As a
draughtsman also he was a forerunner of impressionism in
his grasp of the totality of mass and tone.

As a counter-balance against these late scions of roman-
ticism there is Courbet, the full-blooded peasant genius with
the indomitable desire to press nature herself between his
arms, as Zola puts it. He is a naturalist, a son of the new era,
with the child's positive conviction that it is indeed reality
which presents itself to our senses. All bounds between
good and evil, between the hideous and the beautiful, be-
tween noble things and ignoble, were dissipated before the
unveiled eye of this painter, before his ravenous nature, so
capacious of enjoyment that, as it has been phrased, he felt
himself drawn with all his flesh toward the material world
surrounding him.

Finally there is Manet, the first truly modern painter,
who brilliantly sums up all earlier approaches and technical
advances, from the Venetians and Velazquez to Goya and
Courbet, and so develops an art in which material and spirit,
stroke and tone are joined in a unity of impression found in
no other.

Manet has been called the father of impressionism; un-

500 SCANDINAVIAN ART

justly so, if one thinks of the impressionistic color-decom-
posing technique in itself; justly so, if by impressionism one
means a peculiar manner of visualizing, by hasty survey,
with a special feeling for the total result, for light effects, for
action — in a word, for the momentary singleness of the im-
pact upon the sight.

Manet was the first modern painter also in the sense that
he was the first wholly to devote himself to modern themes.
Allegory, history, myth moved him not at all. Paris, the
mundane career of Parisians and Parisiennes, on the street,
in cafe or cabaret, and at the opera ball, is the sole passion
of his art. The fever and restlessness of the great city in-
cite him; he loves life when its pulses beat high. The race
course, the bar, the Bois de Boulogne, the boudoir consti-
tute his field of study. He paints beautiful and elegant
Parisiennes — a multitude of them. And on fine spring days,
when the Seine lies blue and radiant, with the boats of the
rowing-club beneath the arched bridges, he is to be dis-
covered at Meudon and Argenteuil.

More and more it grew to be Manet's governing impulse
to paint life in strong colors and in the full light of the sun.
Plein-air became the new watchword of art. Even at this
day there lingers a glory of the joy of life about these pic-
tures that are given over to sunshine and the splendor of
summer, to dazzling blue water and white sails, to youth,
bright clothing, and flowers.

Manet's work underwent a continuously ascending devel-
opment, until an implacable disease struck down his prodigal
strength just as it was unfolding itself most completely, and
so broke off the most brilliant and epochal production that
modern painting is able to show. One day in the spring of
1883 Edouard Manet died.

No single painter was prepared to take over Manet's in-
heritance on equal terms. Yet about him had gathered
closely a small group of very capable artists and steadfast
comrades, who in serried ranks pushed forward the battle
lines : Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Renoir, and others — the im-
pressionists, as they were at first scornfully called.

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 501

Among the impressionistic painters Claude Monet takes
the leading position. He was the protagonist who, conscious
of his purpose, with undeviating consistency carried the prin-
ciples of open-air painting farther and developed the impres-
sionistic method. Even in youth the goal was plain to
Monet, namely, to convey light and atmosphere upon the
canvas. To the realization of this idea he devoted his brush
and indeed his life. In order to capture light he gave up
figure painting, in which he had early shown great talent,
fled the studio, and set up his easel out of doors. In order
to master light he made himself a chemist and a physicist,
studied the physics of color, and systematized the result
of his experiences in the technique of color division.

As is well known, the method consists in a mechanical
collocation upon the canvas of small particles of the pure
pigments instead of a chemical mixing of them upon the
palette. The fusing into tone takes place on the retina of
the observer's eye at a proper distance. The gain lies
therein that the colors lose nothing in power through being
blended, but speak with undiminished force from the canvas.
Moreover, since black and all heavy, dark tones are pro-
scribed from the palette, which retains, besides white, only
the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, the paintings
of the impressionists attained a force of light and a vigor
which at the time of their appearance had a positively daz-
zling effect.

By means of this technique Claude Monet and his asso-
ciates pictured Paris and the smiling reaches of the Seine or
the Oise, burgeoning landscapes in summer green, and flow-
ing water. They portrayed the sea dashing against the
rocks at Etretat or expanding along the Mediterranean
coast. Monet himself has also painted several series of pic-
tures from the foggy city on the Thames, the tulip markets
of Haarlem, and the cathedral at Rouen. Through it all,
however, he has painted but one thing, light; light in its
unceasing variations through the atmospheric medium in
changing weather and in the alternating phases of day and
night.

502 SCANDINAVIAN ART

As full-blooded naturalists and sworn adherents of open
air painting the young Norwegians returned home from
Paris with the passing of the early eighties. About the year
1883 nearly all the artistic capacities that our country could
muster were assembled in Norway's capital, and assembled
with the intention of remaining there. Now they were con-
fronted with the task of taking up the cudgels for their new
persuasions and of shaping a new art which should be wholly
Norwegian. This period of naturalism in the eighties
may well be called the golden age of Norwegian art. It
was strongly endowed with talent, and it was entirely
national.

A large collection of the pictures of that time, as it is to
be found, for instance, in the excellently representative can-
vases in our National Gallery, gives an impression of bright
and powerful colors, of the brilliance of sun and snow and
open air, of space and distance, of actuality; in short, it
creates a vivid illusion. Furthermore, one notices that there
are comparatively few landscapes, that they are over-
matched by figure compositions, and that several of these
are of great scope and show figures of life-size, taken from
everyday walks, and almost insistently veracious. The faces
of well known men shine out upon us from these portraits —
poets, artists, composers whose names and works live and
hold sway over us. There is not a picture here whose sub-
ject is drawn from history, from poetry, or in any way
from the world of the imagination. Here is no dream, no
poem, no nocturnal vision, no twilight revery, but sunshine
and again sunshine, or cold, merciless daylight beneath a
Northern sky.

Only by very rare exception do we meet with a foreign
theme. We go with the painters up through the valleys and
with them visit actual Norwegian farmers, farmers who are
working or resting from their labors, farmers who are eat-
ing their bread or are about to eat it, farmers with tough,
capable fists and weatherbeaten physiognomies. We drop
in on fishermen and pilots. We step into the living-rooms
of common people in the cities, we surprise an artisan's little

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 503

family half-dressed about the breakfast table on a winter
morning, or we present ourselves on a Sunday in the parlor
at a festivity incident to the ceremony of confirmation, where
relatives and friends are assembled and an old familiar of
the house raises his glass in honor of the son newly arrived
at grown-up dignity. We walk among the proletariat of
the capital and carry away somber impressions of enforced
idleness, of misery, of the bitter struggle for bread, of sick-
ness and privation. Finally, we even pass within the walls
of the police station and stand face to face with the curse
of pauperism and the social infamy. Vice and brazenness
have the same opportunity to address us through this demo-
cratic art as innocence and uprightness; the hideous has
equal rights with the beautiful.

Furthermore, if one looks not merely at the subjects but
also at the handling of these pictures, one finds a still greater
divergence from the art of an older generation. Almost
universally these paintings are executed with the broad
brush. The color is spread upon the canvas thick and juicy,
often with the living impress of the temperamental hand that
applied it. Moreover, although the brown and black
shadow-tones which would serve to give force to the lights
are to a greater or less degree crowded out of the pictures,
in some cases banished utterly, the coloring is rich in con-
trasts. The pigments are twice as luminous as before. In
addition, wholly new color chords assert themselves, a pure
summer-green which prior to that time was not permitted
upon the palette, a vivid blue in shadows and atmospheric
tints, and frequent refractions of red lights and blue shadows
blending into violet middle tones. In general, the total effect
of the pictures is colder than before — less red and yellow,
more blue and green, and instead of the previous abundance
of brown, rather grey and violet. Further than that, the
modeling has become less sculpturesque than formerly, as
regards roundness of contour and distribution of light, more
pictorial in its planes, broken with reflections, and wrapped
in atmospheric tones. In certain of the pictures the painter
has attempted to apply the principles of the division of color,

504 SCANDINAVIAN ART

and tried to attain a heightened effect from the pigments by
laying the components of the various hues side by side upon
the canvas in greater or less purity.

In drawing and composition, too, great changes have
taken place. The design is no longer clean and clear, as in
older works, showing a thousand details. It has been ab-
sorbed by the picture and has been indissolubly merged with
the brush-technique. All minutiae of outline have been
neglected, partly because the draughtsmanship has not been
of interest to the artist, partly for fear of deadening the pic-
torial effect. Even the perspective has undergone alteration.
The subject is seen at closer range, the foreground crowds
upon the spectator so that objects assume a larger appear-
ance, and the station point is higher than before. From all
this it follows that the composition itself has suffered altera-
tion as well.

Naturalistic painting has often been criticized for faults
of composition. Among us particularly, where the artists
for the most part were self-taught, in the absence of an acad-
emy or an established school, it was well-nigh unavoidable
that the principles of composition should tend to relax. For
that matter, it was a feature of the programme of naturalism
itself to break old and traditional rules of composition.
According to the tenets of the new art a picture ought to be
a transcript from nature. Thus it was not so much a ques-
tion of what one transcribed as of how one did it. The
laying in of the subject itself became the principal thing, for
through it the lines of the picture were determined. It was
less a matter of elaborating a composition than of search-
ing out a theme. From fear of the academic the choice often
fell upon the casual, and from fear of the conventional there
was an inclination toward the bizarre. Instantaneous pho-
tography also had its effect upon art. While previously it
had been out of the question to paint half of a figure or a
part of an object intersected by the picture frame, now
fragments of people and things protrude constantly within
the frame. Yet in spite of such fortuitousness among the
greater number, there was still among the best of our natu-

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 505

ralists a dawning decorative sense which, in great measure
unknown to themselves, gave poise to their pictures. There
is more of decorative power in the paintings from the eigh-
ties than in those of the older generations. It was not, how-
ever, before the following decades that the adorning ele-
ments were able to liberate themselves sufficiently to become
pure decorative art.

This period of the emergence of Norwegian naturalism
was a time of contention and wrath, during which the welkin
rang with shibboleths, war-cries, criminations, and recrimi-
nations. The public was wholly without orientation as
regards the new open-air movement, and at first felt nothing
but a vast sense of indignity. So far as the critics were con-
cerned, they were hardly more than tale-bearers in ordinary,
who by means of warning and abuse provoked one party
against the other, and so widened the cleavage between the
public and the representatives of the new tendency. The
artists, on their side, disported themselves gleefully upon
the waves of displeasure. Viewed impartially from without,
the battle that they were waging had somewhat the appear-
ance of a hailstorm of youthful challenges and irritating
exaggerations. They most indubitably were just what they
were accused of being — one-sided. None the less, they
gained in power as they narrowed their horizon, since they
made of one-sidedness a coat of mail. Through defiance
their strength increased; for behind that defiance was a
stout faith in what to them was the only right thing.
Opposition among public and press was of the strongest;
but in a surprisingly short time it was conquered. At the
close of the eighties the victory was won beyond a doubt;
the leading naturalists were commonly acknowledged as our
foremost artists, and in their footsteps walked the new gen-
eration of painters.

That the struggle was so unexpectedly brief and that
recognition was at last so unanimous is not to be ascribed
alone to the circumstance that in this group of painters
there really was an abundance of talent. Talent in painting
of itself would not have brought triumph to the banners of

506 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Norwegian naturalism. The naturalistic tendency in art
had a background for its striving in the general development
of the nation and in revolutions that were taking place in
the various domains of culture during those years. The
painters themselves were only a small band in the advancing
army which at that period was breaking a way for itself
through barriers of tradition.

The salty stream which from the dramas of Ibsen flowed
through the intellectual life of the land, and of Europe, with
the lofty sky of individualism above it, the fresh mountain
wind which came forth from the poetry and the rousing
activities of Bjornson, the purifying fire of Georg Brandes's
criticism, the passion for truth in the books of Garborg and
Jceger, and the waves of radicalism that rolled high in
national politics, all these things formed the domestic
background for the battle in which the painters were
engaged.

The background, meanwhile, broadens out. Behind the
young pilgrims returning from Paris we descry revolutions
and formative events in the cultural life of Europe through-
out all the fields of thought, of art, of social consciousness.
The positivistic philosophy with its revaluation of old stand-
ards constitutes in a way the remotest part of the perspec-
tive. The sobering effect of naturalistic research upon
science, sociology, and art comes next in importance. Men
began to take into more systematic account the experiences
of the senses. As a twin brother of empiricism in science,
naturalism in art grew more vigorous. And under the influ-
ence of the individualistic and anarchistic tendencies that
gave the strongest incentives to the minds of men during the
nineteenth century, naturalism became impressionism. As
the actual soil from which all these things burst into being
we perceive democracy itself, vast, extensive, restlessly heav-
ing with repressed discontent and earth-bound dreams of
happiness — the desire for social revolution as the foundation
of it all. The revival in Norwegian painting was thus
merely a reflexion from deep intellectual currents that shook
the world in their passing.

THE NATURALISTS: THAULOW, KROHG, AND
WERENSKIOLD. GERHARD MUNTHE

IN THE combative generation of naturalists in the eigh-
ties Thaulow, Krohg, and Werenskiold were the leading
spirits. Fritz Thaulow, who was born in Christiania
in 1847, was the oldest among them and the first to give
battle; but he was also the first to withdraw from the con-
test and to turn his back upon the narrow circumstances
that surrounded art in his native land. When Thaulow
came home to Christiania in 1880 and there met Christian
Krohg, it was as an avowed naturalist and as an enthusi-
astic European, so-called. Both were radical and eager to
take up the cudgels against the limitations of domestic taste
in art. Conscious of the oppressive atmosphere which
rested upon intellectual life in Christiania, the two Euro-
peans formed a close friendship, and by reason of their
contrasting characters and gifts they also influenced each
other professionally.

Upon his arrival from Paris Thaulow was a full-blooded
naturalist with' a touch of impressionism. First and above
all, he was an adherent of open-air painting: the landscape
painter should be forbidden to have a studio; landscapes
should be executed out of doors from nature itself, and the
picture should bean actual portrait and transcript of nature;
and love of truth should be the highest artistic requirement.
Still, Thaulow always had the knack of choosing his subjects.
A feeling for balance and pictorial effect was never wanting
in his tasteful and fastidious work. Krohg and Thaulow
were in so far opposites that while Krohg saw democratic

507

508 SCANDINAVIAN ART

proclamation of truth as the aim of art, Thaulow insisted
even at this early date that art in the nature of things must
be aristocratic, a pleasure of the few and a pleasure alone.

In the art life of Christiania during the eighties Fritz
Thaulow played an important role. He seemed to have a
native gift for attracting young people. Active and hand-
some, enthusiastic and amiable, well-to-do and independent,
full of good humor and confidence, with an air of foreign
culture and a certain quality that could not fail to make him
noticeable as a man about town, Fritz was the lion of the
day. Everybody knew him, almost everybody liked him ; his
comrades and all of Christiania with them called him only
by his first name.

In the long and acrimonious struggle with Kunstfore-
ningen he took an active part. This institution, the object of
which was to buy and parcel out works of art to its members,
and which commanded a considerable budget, measured with
the standards of the time, was governed by an altogether
incompetent board of directors. It was impossible in the
long run for the painters to be content with a state of affairs
in which all sorts of amateurish, untalented productions were
purchased and spread through the homes to assess for them-
selves the modicum of interest in art that existed in Chris-
tiania at that day. The conflict led to a long-continued
strike, which ended in victory for the artists : no picture was
to be considered for purchase that had not previously been
passed upon favorably by a jury of their own number. The
campaign, though difficult, had been conducted on the part
of the artists with unyielding persistency. Its leaders were
Werenskiold, Thaulow, and Krohg.

As a teacher, too, Thaulow exerted a great influence. It
was he who established the so-called open air academy at
Modum, a village near Christiania, whither a large group
of young painters followed him to practise under his direc-
tion the precepts of outdoor study. Here at Modum Thau-
low painted his large picture, now in the National Gallery,
of Hougsfossen in spring flood, tumbling down the moun-
tain-side in foaming cascades and dirty yellow eddies.

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

509

In the period that follows he chooses his themes to a con-
siderable extent from Christiania itself and from the imme-
diate environs. He has painted the Palace Park when leaves
are bursting and when snow covers the ground, the Storting
Squa' j in Wind and Sleet — a picture from the year 1 88 1,
and the hovels along the Aker River. He had a happy
season of study down at Kragero in 1882, during which
on clear winter days he pictured coasting parties in the

The Storting Square in Wind and Sleet, by Fritz Thaulow. Privately

owned

streets between the little, motley houses of the skippers or,
as spring advanced, made careful observations of delicate
sunshine upon rocky knolls and of the naked branches of
apple trees against sunny walls.

With the passing of the eighties Thaulow painted mostly
winter pieces, which more and more became his specialty;
and they carried his fame beyond the bounds of his native
land. After the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1889, at
which Thaulow served as a juror together with Skredsvig,
the Luxembourg Museum bought one of his typical snow
scenes from Vestre Aker, of the year 1887, entitled Ski-
runners. Later, during the nineties, in addition to the snow
themes, river pictures had a particular interest for Thaulow.

510

SCANDINAVIAN ART

A Street in Kragero, by Fritz Thaulow. In the National Gallery

The Luxembourg also has a pastel by him, The Old Factory
at Lysaker.

Thaulow's art has always been lacking in solidity and
rather inclined toward softness. So long as he had Norwe-
gian earth under foot he contended against this failing. In
the long run, however, Thaulow with his international lean-
ings was not to be contained within the limits of the ancestral
land, which according to him had no significance for art. In
1 89 1 he left Norway, and lived first in London, later in
Montreuil, a little old town in Normandy, and thereafter in
Dieppe; as the guest of the Carnegie Institute he visited
America in 1897, but subsequently returned to Paris and
remained there for several years. In the course of these
wanderings his art underwent many changes.

As a colorist Thaulow was possessed of sure and culti-
vated intelligence and above all of good taste. He never
grappled with pigments in their whole volume; his coloring
always played upon muffled strings. He was most at his
ease among soft intermediate tones with suave gradations.
In his landscapes form counted for very little, the arrange-

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

511

Winter Scene from the Mesna River, by Fritz Thaulow

merit of the subject upon the canvas for considerably more,
but color was really all-important. Whatsoever he painted
he was enticed to paint by his love of color. He has caught
the pale tone in the atmosphere of Paris; he has delighted
in the delicate patina with which time has woven a web about
a half-weathered city like Venice; and in a series of pictures
with differing light effects he has found pleasure in variations
upon the theme of an old brick-red, arched bridge in Verona.
It seems remarkable that this international art-Epicurean,
who toward the close of his life was influenced by French,
Scottish, and American painters such as Cazin, Cottet, and
Whistler, and who found his public and his markets in Paris,
in London, and particularly in America, should have gained
the reputation of being a distinctly typical Norwegian artist.
As a matter of fact, in his declining years Thaulow was
totally out of touch with art life in Norway. It cannot be
said of him to the same degree as of his comrades and the
greater number of his pupils that he remained true to natu-
ralism. Sated with the rank, earthy savor of open-air paint-

512 SCANDINAVIAN ART

ing, he returned in his final period to the laboratory of the
atelier.

He has been the object of reproach on this account. Yet
what should one say? In the end, naturalism did not accord
with his gifts. His inclinations and tastes ran in another
direction. Noticeably enough, it is just with examples of
his later manner that he has created a furore at exhibitions
throughout the world, and it is with these that he is repre-
sented in the great museums and collections round about, not
excepting the White House at Washington, where now
hangs his Evening in Pittsburgh, done in 1897. He de-
veloped somewhat in virtuosity during these last years, but
his talents did not gain measurably in depth through this
concluding phase of his career, during which pictures flowed
from his hand with such facility, a downright uncanny facil-
ity, and with ingratiating and at times fundamentally false
effects. The Thaulow who is most likely to keep his ground
in the history of Norwegian art is he who worked hard at
painting skippers' houses and rocky knolls in his native
Norway in the merciless daylight of the eighties. Thaulow
died in Holland in November, 1906.

Christian Krohg was born in Christiania in 1852. He
bears the name of his grandfather, the celebrated jurist
Christian Krohg, who was one of the most prominent cham-
pions in our struggle for national independence during the
first period of the union with Sweden subsequent to 18 14.
After taking the degree of candidatus juris Krohg proceeded
in the early seventies to Karlsruhe, where he became a pupil
of Gussow. Later he studied under the same master in
Berlin, and there he was a friend and fellow-student of Max
Klinger. In 1879 ne returned to Norway to enter upon
what was to be his principal work; painting the life of the
poor in Christiania.

Endowed as he was with the most powerful grasp of
reality and with great pictorial gifts, a democrat by innate
disposition, a journalist inclined toward the literary in his
art as well, a disciple of Zola quite as much as of Manet,
he was the man, more than any other among us, who pro-

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 513

claimed the dogma of the social mission of art. With pencil
no less than with pen he published his convictions. Even
the themes of his first pictures are evidential. In 1880 he
painted The Dawn, which at once gave offence to the cul-
tured. This canvas shows a poor seamstress just as she
has fallen asleep in her garret over a silk dress upon which
she has been at work during the night. Her chest is sunken,
the lamp smokes, the blue winter morning sifts in through
the window-shade and touches with cold light the face and
hands of the exhausted girl. In her lap lies the expensive
lace-trimmed gown designed for the ball that is to speed
the coming night for a woman more happily situated in
society. People scented the socialistic tendency and were
startled. The picture finally found a lodging in the Gothen-
burg Museum. In Krohg's next painting also, A Call for
the Doctor, it is the social contrasts that engage his atten-
tion. Here it is a contrast between abundance and want,
between the happy, wined and dined company about the
glittering board from which the doctor is summoned and
the bowed, thinly dressed working-woman who begs him to
visit a death bed in her poverty-stricken home.

There is one reservation to be made with respect to all
of these pictures, and the objection attaches also to some
among Krohg's later works : it is suspiciously literary art.
There is something of German genre painting in it all, and
something sentimental. The youthful Krohg was not merely
in possession of a pair of sound eyes and a painter's faculty
for enjoying what he saw; he also had a democratic philoso-
phy of life to propound. And with his gift for painting
he had a real gift for writing. Thus it came about that on
occasion he attempted to paint novelettes with a purpose.

In the National Gallery there hangs a picture by Krohg,
typical of this early period and belonging among his best
pieces, The Sick Girl, painted in 1880 immediately after his
return from Berlin and the precepts of Gussow. The scene
is unforgettable by reason of the intensity with which the
subject is conceived and the steadiness of hand with which it
is committed to the canvas. The momentary illusion is so

514

SCANDINAVIAN ART

vivid that the first
impression is one
of life and not of
art. Those large
burning eyes in the
waxen face, sur-
rounded by all that
mass of white in
the invalid's chair,
the woollen blan-
ket, the night-
gown, the pillow —
those eyes will not
loosen their hold,
they penetrate to
the inmost soul and
touch strings that
vibrate to the most
veritably human of
emotions. Still
there is something
obtrusive in the
painfully direct
gaze that trans-
fixes the spectator
and in the pale
rose dropping its
petals, which the consumptive holds in her hands. On look-
ing more closely one is further struck by the hard-handed
manner in which certain passages are painted, the dry zeal
with which the folds of the night-dress are modelled, as if
the artist were handling plaster. To what purpose such an
illusion of the wax-works !

Edvard Munch, too, has painted a youthful picture upon
a similar theme, The Sick Child, probably not without a
knowledge of Krohg's accomplishment. The contrast is
striking and instructive. Krohg has limited himself to mak-

The Sick Girl, by Christian Krohg. In the
National Gallery

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

515

ing a portrait of his stricken model; Munch has given scope
to his feelings in a composition rich with color, in which the
mother of the child is present and determines the lines.
Krohg's painting is, in short, realistic still life. It gives
evidence of a model, of material, of form, and of hues which
the artist has had before his eyes and which he has imitated.
Munch's work is a tone poem, and yet a composition with
touchingly simple line effects. Not more than six years sepa-
rate the two canvases, but they represent art from two dif-
ferent epochs.

Krohg had a happy season of creative activity while he
lived in 1883 at Skagen and there painted the daily life of
fisherfolk in their little cottages. As Michael Ancher and
Kroyer portrayed the stout seadogs in hip-boots and south-
westers at their work on the water, Krohg gave his attention
especially to those who were left at home, old people mend-
ing the nets and women at their household tasks with the
children. Two of his most admirable achievements from
the Skagen period are a glorification of motherhood.

The Sleeping Mother and Child, by Christian Krohg.
Picture Gallery

In the Bergen

516 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Mother and Child, in the National Gallery, is a simple and
clear composition disclosing a sailor's young wife at the bed-
side of her child. The mother's broad, arched back forms
a culminating mass of violet and stands out in a character-
istic manner against the whitewashed background. As re-
gards color scheme The Sleeping Mother and Child in
Rasmus Meyer's collection at Bergen is still better. More
straightforward and sincere it is impossible for a picture
from life to be, and as painting it possesses inimitable beau-
ties. Beside the white bed stands the red cradle with the
sleeping babe. The young mother has perhaps sung the
infant to sleep with her knitting between her hands. Now
she has herself fallen into slumber, her head resting against
the bedstead. Her entire body is relaxed in deep repose.
On the coffee-stained table stands a dish of porridge half
eaten; and all is so quiet that one seems to hear the buzzing
of flies in the evening sun and the rhythmic breathing of the
sleepers. The picture is executed with unexampled loveli-
ness, with firm and easy touch, and with equal finish and
strength of tone. Smaller canvases, admirable in coloring,
from the same brilliant period in Krohg's production, with
related motives from Skagen are on the walls of the Na-
tional Gallery. Nevertheless there is a rise in the quality
of Krohg's work fsom these splendid paintings to the mas-
terpiece of his life, the Albertine.

In 1885 appeared Hans Jaeger's book, The Christiania
Bohemians, with its ruthless self-revelations and its violent
attacks on existing society. Upon a large number of youths
this first Norwegian naturalistic novel, as it has been
called, made a profound impression, an impression fur-
ther strengthened by the treatment which the book and its
author received at the hands of the reputedly liberal gov-
ernment of Sverdrup : the edition was seized, and the
writer was committed to prison upon sentence by the su-
preme court. This violation of the freedom of the press
consolidated all true radicals; and Christian Krohg came
forward in the first rank to defend Jaeger and naturalistic
literature.

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

517

Albertine, by Christian Krohg. In the National Gallery

The following year Krohg himself published a novel of
similar stamp under the title of Albertine, an unveiled
account of a poor Christiania girl's joyless life and putative
fall, her shocking seduction and resultant degradation to the
prostitute's caste by means of the brutal medical examination
under police authority which at that time was in vogue,
Krohg's book, too, was confiscated, and he was subjected to
a fine. The novel, however, which was accepted as a denun-
ciation of the system of prostitution, brought about a popu-
lar movement against the government which muzzled litera-
ture while it tolerated mercenary vice.

In the following year, 1887, the painter came before the
public with his large canvas, Albertine in the Waiting-room
of the Police Doctor. Great as was the commotion aroused
by the book, the painting suffered a corresponding degree
of neglect on being shown in a vacant shop. Critics took
exception to it, and the best society did not venture to look
at it, much less to buy it. None the less, while the novel,
having fulfilled its mission, was forgotten, the picture sur-
vived and will survive as one of the greatest achievements
in Norwegian art. What Krohg had in mind and what he
so brilliantly accomplished was that depiction of milieu upon

518 SCANDINAVIAN ART

which the naturalistic doctrine laid such stress, and which
never before had been expressed in Scandinavian painting
with even approximate power. For that matter, the canons
of naturalism have in no instance been more boldly and
vigorously exemplified. As a narrative it may be that the
work is not exactly obvious, yet that only adds to its value as
a picture. It has its faults of composition no less than its
excellences; but as a document in typology it is probably
without parallel in the whole range of naturalistic art. As
a painting it exhibits the most splendid details. With what
skill the two powerful foreground figures are managed,
the woman in velvet and the woman in watered silk, what
firm and flowing outlines, what adroitness in the use of the
brilliant carnation and the bedizened finery to enhance the
total color effect — it is all magnificent. This canvas reveals
a master hand. Here the question might actually arise of
a trial of strength between French and Norwegian painting,
a comparison of Norwegian force and immediacy with
French esprit and taste.

To discuss Krohg further after dilating on this picture is
hardly worth the trouble, in part because he has done noth-
ing better, in part because he has not been able to maintain
this height. Still Krohg's production has been very copious
and full of surprising things among the terrific quantity of
routine work that has come from his brush. His next large
social subject, The Struggle for Existence, from the year
1890, in which Hans Jaeger put such great faith, was an
effective contribution in the campaign against pauperism ; but
as art it is far from equalling its predecessor, despite excel-
lently handled details. It is significant that while this new
colossal canvas was immediately bought for the National
Gallery, the Albertine has had to wait half a generation for
a place in the art museum of the State. It is now there.

It is usually in pictures whose subjects crowd the canvas
somewhat that Krohg's composition is at its best, particu-
larly in the representation of seamen. Here he has really
a special field and a knack of his own in painting at close
range on board a boat or a cutter or from the deck of a

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

519

On the Look-out for the Pilot, by Christian Krohg. Privately owned

ship. Under such circumstances he demonstrates a peculiar
facility in balancing the composition by means of lines cut-
ting obliquely within the frame, horizontals and verticals
in careening position with reference to the free balance of
the living human figure. The effect is striking and amusing ;
but it must be admitted that in the detailed arrangement of
his subjects upon the canvas he has learned very much
from the Frenchmen, notably from Degas.

Finally it should be borne in mind that Krohg has dis-
tinguished himself as a portrait painter. With Werenskiold
he shares the supremacy among his own generation. There
is a tremendous difference between the two, nevertheless :
Werenskiold has the searching, striving, delving method of
characterization that plumbs the depths to discover diversi-
ties of soul and explores the surface in quest of precision;
Krohg boldly hits the mark by direct force of vision and
intrepidity of hand. A milieu portrait so spirited and pic-
torial and intellectual as that which he painted in 1883 of
Gerhard Munthe in his fur coat entering the Grand Cafe
has about it something of the quality of portraits by Manet,
although it has less firmness and solidity. Take another
instance, his full-length portrait of Johan Sverdrup hang-

520

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of the Painter Gerhard Munthe, by Christian Krohg

ing in the Storting, done in 1882 — how it depicts character
in attitude and gesture and effective setting: the little, ele-
gant, reserved man in the large dark canvas.

Krohg has produced many excellent portraits, yet two of
them surpass the others. One is the noble and heart-stir-
ring likeness from the year 1893, of his own aunt, the aged
Froken Krohg with the kind, bright eyes and the wrinkled

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

521

'•"*- -' '

1a#

I^t^Wl '*• i m

•

'."".-

Portrait of Prime Minister Johan Sverdrup, by Christian Krohg.
In the Storting

522

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Agnes, by Christian Krohg. In the National Gallery

hands. The other is an almost unknown study from his
Albertine period, probably dating from 1889, entitled

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

523

Study for Albertine, by Christian Krohg. Privately owned

Agnes or, as he called it later, The Girl of the Eighties.
She is a child of the streets with large burning eyes, an
animal type of woman from the lower classes, presented
with a feeling, a masculine instinct, and a masterly sim-
plicity which make the work a classic for all time. Krohg
is still living in Christiania and continuing his production,
a production of extremely uneven value.

The third and in some respects the most significant
personality in the art life of the eighties was Erik
Werenskiold, who was born at Kongsvinger in 1855. Dur-

524 SCANDINAVIAN ART

"In the Evening They Came to a Big, Fine House." Vignette

for the tale of The Three Princesses in the Mountain Blue, by

Erik Werenskiold

ing the years of the battle for naturalism he was in fact the
strong, unswerving leader of the modern movement. So
buoyant and capable of development are his intelligence and
his talents that Werenskiold even at this day, in spite of his
sixty-six years, is a fighter in the ranks of the young, with
an open vision for other artistic values than those which
stirred the enthusiasm of his own youth. In Werenskiold's
temperament there is a blending of will-power, clear, cold
calculation, and something of the quiet, gentle visionary.
He is a compound of logician and lyrist.

Werenskiold spent his first period of study in Munich,
where the instruction of Lofftz particularly had a certain
influence on his early development. Even in Munich, how-
ever, he felt himself to be a naturalist; even here his aim
was national. The first large canvas that he sent home, one
that attracted real and lasting interest in his talent, has a
genre subject in which peasants appear; it was painted in
1880 and entitled A Meeting. The picture impresses a
thoroughly modern observer as being rather German, both
in color and in narrative appeal. Yet it has a characteriza-
tion that is markedly realistic for its time and it denotes a
resolute advance beyond Tidemand's and even Sundt-
Hansen's depiction of peasant life. The laconic lovemaking,
the heavy, rustic joking between the young, slender hay-
maker and the girls that meet in the fields all reveal a subtle
and sure perception of the manners and the peculiarities of
rural people. Meanwhile Werenskiold had, as early as the
period 1 878-1 880, made his first drawings for the popular
tales. By these illustrations he had given evidence of both
the originality and the astonishing maturity of his talents.

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

525

There are few things in Norwegian art of which it may
be said with full assurance that they are classic;
Werenskiold's illustrations for the tales are among those
few. It is easy enough to explain why this is the case. It is

: :■ % ,'" I

"And Then they All Three Begged and Pleaded with the Watchman."

Illustration for the tale of The Three Princesses in the Mountain Blue,

by Erik Werenskiold

526 SCANDINAVIAN ART

because the form is as good as the subject matter and the
subject matter significant and valuable in itself. Just as
Asbjornsen and Moe's retelling of the tales was the first
literary portrayal of folk-life that had a dependable and
really Norwegian tone, so Werenskiold's illustrations were
the first reliable artistic representation of Norwegian folk-
life. In happy fashion he has dipped down into the
character of the people and exhibits the figures from the
tales as though seen by the eye of the rustic himself, with
his notions of the great and the small, the fine and the
funny, with his fresh humor and equable judgment. There-
fore the king of the tale appears as a big-wig in dressing
gown and slippers, with a long-stemmed pipe in his mouth
and his crown askew. The princesses are metamorphosed
into country gentlemen's slender, overgrown daughters in
white muslins, and the palace has been changed into a spa-
cious old farm establishment in eastern Norway with its
dinner-bell belfry, its balconies, and its huge outbuildings.
With masterly discretion the portrayer of rustic life in these
illustrations harks back to an uncertain, yet not very distant
past, in which the wonderful events of the tales are quite
possible; the real and the imaginary counterbalance each
other in the most attractive way. And about these scenes
from folk-life he has made a sort of framework of fresh
and genuine Norwegian nature, full of charm and sweet
scents, conceived in a new spirit — wood and heath, lake
and swamp, farmyard and field, animals, too, in the forest
and about the enclosures — all told, those summer days and
those winter evenings from which the popular tales have
drawn their poetry, their gay humor, and their goblin fear-
someness.

During his studies in Munich Werenskiold saw for the
first time, at the Exposition of 1879, the French naturalists.
It was at once apparent to him that he had nothing farther to
do in Munich. He finished the work upon which he hap-
pened to be engaged, packed his trunk, and set out for Paris.
It was in January, 1881, that he arrived in the French
capital. Among Norwegian painters who had preceded him

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 527

he found Heyerdahl, still basking in the renown which Adam
and Eve had brought him; he found Skredsvig, who during
that year made a success with his Ferme a Venoix, and with
whom he associated most; he found Uchermann, Harriet
Backer, and Kitty Kielland; among later comers, Ulfsten
and Krohg. Besides he found here almost the entire group
of Swedish artists known as the "Opponents," and several
Danes, in their number Joakim Skovgaard, with whom he
formed a close acquaintance.

In Paris Werenskiold felt himself strongly drawn to the
impressionists, whose work he saw in the displays of art
dealers on the boulevards, to Manet, Monet, Renoir,
Cezanne, and Pissarro. In a private letter of a subsequent
date he expresses regret at not having sought to establish
greater intimacy with these men and at a later time with
Van Gogh, whose brother he knew. Outside of artistic
circles, too, Werenskiold received deep impressions during
those years in Paris. Both Bjornstjerne Bjornson and Jonas
Lie at this period were living in the city on the Seine, and
with each of them he entered upon a warm and lasting at-
tachment.

At the close of the year 1883 Werenskiold returned to
Norway with the intention of remaining there. It was clear
to him that naturalism alone could nationalize Norwegian
art and make it known and loved at home. When he
reached Christiania with a completed plan of campaign for
the laborious battle in behalf of a national art, he discovered
Thaulow and Krohg already on the scene and the struggle
with Kunstforeningen well under way. Now the contest
between the artists and the public, or rather the guardians
of the public, really burst into full blaze. And in the long
run it became clear that Werenskiold was the actual leader
of the movement, persevering and consistent in all that he
did, the man of deep convictions and with the will to achieve
power.

It was not until he had spent three summers among the
country people at Gvarv in Telemarken during the years
1 883-1885 that Werenskiold found himself definitely as a

528

SCANDINAVIAN ART

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 529

painter. Here he finished such mature and meritorious
works as Telemarken Girls and A Country Funeral. In
these pictures and in his illustrations to the tales he has
struck the vein of the romantic succession, but in a modern
and realistic spirit. In continuation of, and yet in contrast
to, Tidemand's sentimental and idyllic portrayal of the
farmer, Werenskiold has given in his Country Funeral a
strictly realistic and unsentimental exposition of the Nor-
wegian rural population, keenly characterized from the
typical and still individual point of view. It is a hot midday
in summer. Over the blue valley the air is vibrating with
heat, and the farmers who have carried the coffin stand
blinking at the sun while the schoolmaster, in the absence
of the clergyman, reads a passage from the hymn book. No
man weeps, no face betrays positive sorrow. Stolid and
steady, laconic and slow of movement, these rustic Norwe-
gians are; no emotion is capable of disturbing their out-
ward calm.

Still Werenskiold is not simply the merciless realist as in
this picture. In his landscapes he has shown himself capable
of treating nature in a gentle, mellow, lyrical manner. One
of the finest of his paintings is Summer Night, done in
1893. Beneath willows and alders, on the margin of a
placid lake at the foot of a mountain touched with the
lingering rosy tints of the heavens, "the bay" and "the
black" horse are grazing. It is a clear night, in which
sounds would be carrying far; one seems to hear the fresh
cropped grass being champed between the jaws of the horses,
and one expects to hear the sound of the bell when they move
their feet in the verdant meadow.

Werenskiold is an excellent and highly esteemed por-
traitist. His knowledge of men, his keen vision, his zeal
for discriminating observation fit him for portraiture. In
sobriety of characterization and solidity of execution
Werenskiold's portraits are superior to those of other Nor-
wegians, elder or younger. As for impulsive conception
and poetic interpretation of personality, he is perhaps sur-
passed by Edvard Munch. Nevertheless, as the great Nor-

530

SCANDINAVIAN ART

wegian portrait painter, Werenskiold is known far beyond
the confines of his own country.

The lively and excellently designed portrait of Professor
Helland is a good example of his manner during the
eighties. From the early nineties there is the soulful like-
ness of Erika Nissen at the Piano. Against a dream land-
scape of old faded Gobelin tapestry the pale profile of
the pianist delineates itself with an almost painful ex-
pression of the nervous intensity of her art, and one catches

all but audibly the
deep and sonorous
tones streaming
out from the great,
dark mass of the
piano, which forms
a background to
the glowing red of
her velvet gown.

From Weren-
skiold's brush there
are two portraits
of Bjorn s t j e rn e
Bjornson. The
first, done in 1888,
is now in the Na-
tional Gallery.
Here the hands in
particular are
beautifully paint-
ed and matchlessly
characterized
through the poet's argumentative tapping with a paper-cutter
upon his palm. The other, from the year 1900, is in the
National Gallery of Denmark. Here it is no longer Bjorn-
son the fighter and agitator, sharp of eye and impetuous of
hand; it is Norway's securely enthroned poet-king, gazing
proudly out from his own domain, conscious that the very
land itself is his background.

Portrait of the Artist's Mother, by Erik
Werenskiold. Privately owned

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

531

Henrik Ibsen, by Erik Werenskiold. In the National
Gallery

Werenskiold's most eminent portrait, however, is the
colored drawing on canvas which he made in 1895 °f
Henrik Ibsen. The subject is drawn in the open with un-
covered head and with his hands behind his back. The
mouth is tightly closed, the forehead firmly arched, and the
mane of hair rises abruptly from the abrupt brow. A pene-
trating oblique glance comes through his spectacles and

532

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Ships Returning After the Battle of Svolder. Illustration
Snorre's Sagas of the Norse Kings, by Erik Werenskiold

for

pierces unforgettably the memory of the beholder. Behind
him, lightly sketched, is a winter landscape with mountains
of cold, pure snow, the country of the sparsely peopled ex-
panses which gave birth to the author of Brand — the country
of his own clear, frosty thought. Many other portraits by
Werenskiold might be enumerated, such as those of Edvard
Grieg, Fridtjof Nansen, Christian Sinding, and the bold
likeness of his friend Fredrik Collett, produced in 1894 and
now in the Swedish National Museum.

Together with other Norwegian painters, Egedius,
Munthe, and several more, Werenskiold has provided the
illustrations for Snorre's Sagas of the Norse Kings. Among
Werenskiold's contributions are many that are magnificent,
as regards both narration and execution. The nature of
Norway and her rustic manners are joined in a representa-
tion which has the most striking truthfulness. Erik
Werenskiold's talent has always possessed mobility. In his
art one discerns constant struggle and exertion of energy.
During his entire life he has been in process of development,
has made experiments, has changed his theories and his
technique. Just at the time in his Munich period when he
had found his classic manner he broke sharply and suddenly

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

533

with his previous acquirements, went to Paris, where he be-
came a professed naturalist, and a few years later returned
home as a devoted apostle of genuine open-air coloring.

Yet the essential and decisive reversal in his art is that by
which he made a conscious transition from the draughtsman's
procedure to the
painter's. When
h i s eyes were
really opened to
the technique of
color division as
practised by the
impressionists, to
their sense of tone
and totality in pic-
torial effect, he vig-
orously set about
revitalizing and
strengthening his
own work in the
same direction.
He now interested
himself in the sur-
face effects of a
picture almost as much as in its theme, made experiments
with palette knife and with brush, built up the painting with
his knife or knitted it together by means of short strokes of
the brush, in brief, tried the most varied methods of attain-
ing his dream, namely pictures in which values predominate,
which have compactness and weight and still have atmos-
phere. The change may be dated from the portrait of Head
Master Knudsen, done in 1903, a painting no less remark-
able for psychological power than for color.

Werenskiold is still the man of ardent and onesided con-
victions, always wholly committed, heart and soul, to his
altering points of view. Herein lies his youthfulness, which
he still preserves despite his silver hair. If a nature like his
loses its pliancy, its day is done; it becomes barren, doctri-

Portrait of Head Master Knudsen, by Erik
Werenskiold

534 SCANDINAVIAN ART

naire, rancorous. Erik Werenskiold is just the contrary
of all these things, a consoling exemplar of rugged
youth, a master who still strives with himself and has
faith in his striving, a critical mind which withal has
retained its receptivity and capacity for consecration.
Beyond question he is the greatest moral force which
remains to our art life from the sturdy generation to which
he belongs.

To these leaders among the open-air naturalists,
Werenskiold, Thaulow, and Krohg, is to be added as the
fourth in the four-leafed clover, Gerhard Munthe, Norway's
most distinguished landscapist in this period and in a later
period the imaginative renewer and reviver of decorative
art in the Old Norse spirit. Gerhard Munthe was born at
Elverum in 1849. His father was a district physician in
this heavily wooded region of eastern Norway. From the
distinctive Eastland country in Osterdalen and Trysil,
Gerhard Munthe carried away his earliest impressions, of
broad, tranquil farmsteads and their simple, self-reliant
population. He is fond of the spacious freeholds, with
their unrestricted situation on the slopes, their balconies and
storehouses and ample barns and outbuildings grouped about
the farmyard, with a wide compass of cultivated ground
in front and a mixed wood of spruce and deciduous trees at
the rear. He is quite at home on a farm of this sort. He
has wandered through the overgrown garden, has followed
the haymakers to the most distant fields, and has helped to
round up the horses in the enclosures. He is familiar with
the agricultural implements, counts the watchdog his friend,
knows minutely the appearance of everything in the living-
rooms and the blue-painted kitchen, and has seen the hidden
treasures of old variegated finery in the gaily-painted chests
in the stabur.

In 1874 Gerhard Munthe went to Diisseldorf, where he
associated a great deal with his older relative, Ludvig
Munthe, without really being his pupil. Yet he was much
influenced by Ludvig Munthe's masterly, mature facility in
coloring and by his commanding personality as a man of

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 535

the world. The art of Andreas Achenbach also left a deep
impress upon him.

In 1877 Gerhard Munthe left Diisseldorf and, following
his kinsman's advice, settled in Munich for the purpose of
painting on his own initiative. There are lovely things from
Munthe's Munich period, done in dark warm tones, softly
harmonized pictures upon simple, realistic themes. Yet it
went with him as with the others : he became fearful of re-
maining too long. It was altogether too easy to paint in
Munich. He became apprehensive of the routine, and fol-
lowed the example of his comrades in returning home for
good in 1883. He understood that the path to self-
expression lay through the naturalistic method of working
in the open. His first attempt was the Summer Scene from
Eidsvold, which was shown at the Autumn Exposition of
the same year.

At home it was impossible for him to avoid being drawn
into the battle between the artists and the public, and
Munthe was as active as any one in preaching by word and
deed the virtues of open-air painting and naturalism. To
that group in which Eilif Peterssen was the most tactful,
the noble and winning personality, in which Krohg was the
element of uncompromising force, Werenskiold of persever-
ing energy, and Thaulow of good spirits, Gerhard Munthe
contributed the brilliant and bizarre fancy. It was he who
cracked the saving jokes, and who, on the whole, was the
waggish fellow. He has a comfortable way of talking, all
his own. He likes to talk, and the steady flow of his con-
versation sparkles with happy thoughts, flashes of wit, and
paradoxes. And Munthe's art, like his manner, has a sur-
prising dual quality.

Out from a fundamental natural simplicity, the soil in
which good, everyday characteristics thrive, there springs
in capricious opulence a growth of marvellous imaginings.
In this placid mind, with its strong love of home, its fidelity
to childhood impressions, its delight in all that is comfort-
able and cosy and unsophisticated, there dwells a devil of
ingenuity who is both refined and coquettish, and who oc-

536

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Evening in Eggedal, by Gerhard Munthe. In the National Gallery

casionally is permitted to disport himself at will. There is
a suggestion behind it all of dark spacious garrets of the
imagination whose wonderful furniture and goblin in-
habitants neither the artist himself nor any one else can
fully comprehend, but which yet provide sustenance for his
art. It was not, however, till a late period that Munthe's

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

537

A Farm Garden, by Gerhard Munthe. In the National Gallery-

talent for the fantastic actually emerged. He began as a
landscape painter pure and simple, and he remained sin-
cerely devoted to the naturalistic view.

The first important evidence of the transformation in
Munthe's art was the large scene from Vik in Stange which
he painted in 1884 and which under the title of Haymaking
now hangs in the National Gallery. It made a great im-
pression by its sparkling effect of light when it was shown
at the Exposition in the autumn of that year. In the
National Gallery he is further represented by a smaller
canvas, painted in 1888, and entitled Evening in Eggedal.
This picture, reproduced here, gives a wide view of summer
nature in Norway across meadows and fields and stabur
and dwellings toward the blue mountains out of which the
river winds like a gleaming ribbon of silver in the twilight.
Munthe's masterpiece in landscape, however, is one from
the year 1889 called A Farm Garden, which is also repro-

538

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Daughters of the Northern Lights or the Suitors, by Gerhard Munthe.
In the National Gallery

duced here. Evening is coming on, and the grey, two-
storied farmhouse, filling up the entire background, shows
in dark relief against the sky. A man stands leaning in
through an open window and talking to some one inside.
Under the immense morel-tree in the unkempt, disordered
garden is a white mare with sleepily lowered head. There
is nothing more in the picture, but that is enough. The
hour and the season, the country and the particular region
in it, the circumstances of human life and an animal type
are all represented in this summer evening from Hede-
marken, so vividly has the artist seen and felt and rendered
his theme.

Among Munthe's gifts there was room for still other
possibilities than those that are exemplified in his naturalistic
landscapes. In his recollections of childhood the im-
pressions from nature were woven together with impressions
from survivals of the ancient inheritance of rustic culture.
He had a feeling for the Norwegian character of the arts and

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

539

Odin. Illustration for Snorre's Sagas of the Norse
Kings. By Gerhard Munthe

crafts of the farmer. Sagas which he had read in early
youth, tales and songs, jingles and verses from the servants'
room and the kitchen, the rhythms of antique lays, the
picturesque refrains of ballads had in the course of time
spun a tangled and variegated web in his imagination which
must be disengaged. Splendid colors in the dresses of girls,
in the flower-designs upon old chests, upon pied cupboards
and ale tankards and naive, venerable tapestries had
fastened themselves in his memory and there lingered to
demand renewed life in Norwegian art. Upon such im-
pressions and reminiscences Munthe's decorative art is built.
His fantasies on Norse popular tales — The Daughters of
the Northern Lights or the Suitors, Hel's Horse, "Trolle-
botten," The Sagacious Bird, Black Apples — belong to a
group of themes in which the arbitrary chances of a world of
fable predominate. Both in the drawings for the tales and
in the splendid frieze illustrating the old popular ballad of
Aasmund Fraegdagjaever we are in touch with a primitive
Norse set of ideas. Over these pictures there passes a
gusty breath from glaciers and from a sea that is black as
ink. Bears rustle through the leaves, wolves patter about,

540

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Horses of the Waves. Vignette, by Gerhard Munthe

and ominous night birds flap their wings. Rusty iron gates
creak upon their hinges, blood courses beneath closed doors
and drips from mirky vaults. And the rout of trolls,
loathsome and lumpish, undergo their metamorphoses.
Yet amid all of this devilry there is a dash of bucolic humor
and animal comedy; amid all that is sinister there is some-
thing that is idyllic and childlike in charm. In the entire
series of pictures, moreover, the colors are positively jubi-
lant, strong and pure and refreshing to the eye.

Munthe's greatest achievement, nevertheless, is the group
of drawings for Snorre. From the fabled world of the
tales he has made his way to the solid ground of history.
He has had recoyrse to the unearthed art relics of the
bronze age. He has proceeded with the determination of
reaching what is most fundamentally Norwegian in tradi-
tion and temperament; and his intuitive and self-willed
intelligence has actually found the way. He has solved his
problem with the sureness of genius. It is not merely
somnabulistic certainty. Much wide-awake reflection and
thorough study precede his results. This fact Munthe has
made evident to us in a few thoughtful and brilliant pages
on the subject of illustrating our primitive past. With
regard to the best of his drawings for Snorre one has the
impression that they could not have been done otherwise.

Munthe understood, as Egedius also understood, that
without archaizing nothing was to be accomplished. All
attempts at naturalism would inevitably glance off from the

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 541

remoteness and the stony solidity of style in the text.
Therefore he has also wisely avoided so far as possible the
historical events themselves. Seldom has he drawn scenes
in which figures appear; and in the exceptional cases his
manner is broad, decorative. On the other hand, he
has woven about each saga and particularly about the
enigmatical Skaldic verses an ornamentation of freely in-
vented friezes and vignettes which serve as an accompani-
ment to the text. Against this decorative background, in
which dragons snort and spear-points are being sharpened, in
which arrows darken the sky and blood flows in streams,
the events stand out in larger and ruder proportions.

VI,

OTHER PAINTERS OF THE SEVENTIES
AND EIGHTIES

VIRTUALLY all of the painters in the older genera-
tion of naturalists were products of an urban cul-
ture. Collett, Thaulow, Krohg, Werenskiold,
Munthe, Diriks, Gloersen and others were sons of men in
the official class or of men who had received an academic
training. For their own part, they had perhaps finished a
Latin school or taken some examination or other at the
University. The only farmer's son among them was
Skredsvig. The more remarkable it is that this man of
country origin permitted himself to a greater extent than
other painters in the group to be overwhelmed by French
influence. The grey keynote that he acquired in Paris about
1880 he has retained throughout life. Christian Skredsvig
was born at Modum in 1854 of a family in straitened
circumstances. In early youth, however, he received assist-
ance toward developing his natural aptitudes. At the age
of fifteen he became a pupil of Eckersberg in Christiania ;
later, in 1875, he went to Munich, where he remained three
years. Skredsvig has a lighter and more diaphanous color-
ing than other young Norwegian painters who learned the
elements in German schools. The Munich brown which
many of them had a great deal of trouble in getting rid of
has never given him any difficulty.

In 1879 Skredsvig came to Paris, where he continued his
studies and associated much with the Swedish artists known
as the "Opponents." It is amusingly characteristic of the
Modum boy's stay in Paris that it was a heavy snowfall that
first engaged his interest there. As it happens, one of his

542

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 543

earliest French pictures, done in 1879, is entitled Carting
Snow Along the Seine. Yet it was not until he exhibited
Ferme a Venoix at the Salon of 1881 that he attracted
general attention. He received that year, at the same time
as Kroyer, one of the gold medals of the Salon; the paint-
ing was bought by the French government, and until the
outbreak of the war hung in the Museum at Rheims.

It was natural that Skredsvig, poetical and idyllic of
temperament, should become fond of Corot and Millet.
The soft grey keynote in his color is probably owing in large
part to Corot. Early in his career he made a specialty of
painting animals, preferably in landscapes, together with
the herdsmen. One of his pictures from this period is
October Morning in Grez, now in the National Gallery.
The canvas gives rather a French effect by reason of its flat
French landscape beneath a milky sky, the huge Norman
horses, and the boy on horseback meeting the shepherd girl
in the midst of her flock, the boy in his wide, blue blouse and
the girl in her Millet capuchon. Not the least considerable
part of the French impression is due to the pale grey Salon
tone used in painting the picture.

Skredsvig's masterpiece is called Ballade. It was
executed after his return from France, and is now in a
private gallery near Christiania. The artist once saw three
of the sturdy horses of Northern France standing saddled
outside a gate on a grey, cold, windy day in autumn, and was
struck by their lonely, foresaken appearance. He recalled
the ballad refrain about the riders who went forth to battle
and whose coursers came home bloody and with emptied
saddles ; and he gave expression to his sentiments in this
narrative painting with the animals deserted in storm and
mire on the highway as a theme.

When Skredsvig returned to Norway in 1884 after his
French apprenticeship and his foreign triumphs, it was not
long before the rustic lyricist in him dominated the Paris
artist. Now that he was sure of himself, he carried his
art back to the soil from which he sprang, to the memories
of his childhood, and to rural life. One of his best pictures

544

SCANDINAVIAN ART

in the National Gallery is that entitled Pladsen, presenting
the early home of the poet Vinje. He has also painted
Vinje as a Shepherd Boy, and the poetic picture, The Willow
Whistle, reproduced herewith.

Still Skredsvig's ambition has turned, too, toward the
larger historical compositions, the great canvases with nar-
rative themes abounding in figures or with symbolic content.

"Pladsen," Birthplace of the Poet Vinje, by Christian Skredsvig.
the National Gallery

In The Son of Man he depicts, in agreement with von Uhde
and Tolstoy, the return of the Savior in our own time as a
lay preacher and miracle-worker of the laboring classes,
who wanders about from one region to the other performing
good deeds and supernatural acts. This very spacious paint-
ing has fine picturesque details and is obviously the fruit of
ardent and sincere feeling; the total effect, nevertheless, is
rather thin.

In Valdrisvisa Skredsvig's warmhearted, imaginative lyric
note resounds full and rich. Valdrisvisa is a series of

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

545

The Willow Whistle, by Christian Skredsvig. Privately owned
in Christiania

aquarelles which he composed after his removal in 1894 to
Eggedal, where he married a farmer's daughter and built
himself a home. Here he painted the evening calm on

From the water-color series "Valdrisvisa," by Christian Skredsvig
In the National Gallery

546 SCANDINAVIAN ART

slopes and mountain ridges, the cries and calls of the saeter
girl, and the dairy-maid's life among her cattle in barn and
field and meadow. In these scenes Skredsvig gives free
play to his copious gifts by flashes of capriciously changing
fancy in which there is a touch of the marvellous, of innocent
jocosity, and kindness of heart — the whole upon a ground of
gentle melancholy. Just so is the man himself when, in a
circle of comrades, he lets himself go and unbends, sings
his Eggedal ditties, flings himself from sadness into joviality,
and permits all of the chords in his nervous, sensitive spirit
to vibrate. It should be mentioned, finally, that Skredsvig
in later years has gained a considerable reputation as an
author in his native land. His books, The Miller's Son and
Even's Homecoming, possess an originality and a naive
freshness of contents and language that have won the ad-
miration of many.

An artist who belongs to the same generation of painters
as Werenskiold and the others of the Munich school, but
who has followed curious paths of his own, is Theodor
Kittelsen. Theodor Kittelsen was born at Kragero in 1857.
His father died comparatively young, and Theodor had to
contend with poverty and hardship throughout his entire
early youth; but eventually he came to Munich, where he
found it possible to spend three and a half years during the
most fruitful peri6d in the experience of the Norwegians at
the capital of Bavaria. He studied at the Academy under
Lofftz and Lindenschmidt. Later he went to Paris on a
stipend, but was not content to remain there; and the next
time he left home it was to return to the congenial
atmosphere of Munich. This last stay covered four and
a half years.

Thereafter he made his permanent residence in Norway.
Characteristically enough, Kittelsen began as a markedly
realistic genre painter with a leaning toward social subjects.
That was during the years when the ideas born of Bjornson's
and Ibsen's social dramas were producing their strongest
ferment in the minds of men, and the problems of society
were insistently demanding a place in Art. A Strike is the

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

547

Strike, by Theodor Kittelsen

title of Kittelsen's first large figure composition. Before
Christian Krohg or any one else, Kittelsen here takes up
a theme from the life of the laboring classes and places the
contrasting social forces in sharp opposition to each other.
A deputation of workingmen has brought forward its de-
mands and stands respectfully awaiting the decision of the
two employers in their comfortable office. The light from
a large hanging-lamp falls brightly upon the masters of
industry and upon the green covering of the table, and just
glances upon the group of employees, who lose themselves
in the farther darkness. The seriousness of the situation
is evident. The argumentative calm of one of the em-
ployers and the ill-boding nonchalance of the other hardly
indicate that the strike will have an outcome satisfactory
to the workers. The picture is rather blackly painted, yet
clearly composed and handled in such a way as to give a
powerful characterization of the types. Meanwhile it was
in an entirely different field that Kittelsen was to make his
reputation.

Theodor Kittelsen is by no means an ordinary painter,
but an extra-canonical artist, a peculiar dual nature, humorist

548

SCANDINAVIAN ART

and lyrist, yet at bottom a visionary. It was in Munich that
he drew the imaginative series of illustrations for the
Homeric poem, The War of the Frogs and the Mice, a
masterpiece of animal comedy, much more amusing than
Grandville. In a later series of animal caricatures which
he published under the title, Have Animals Souls? the satire
is more caustic, although still comparatively innocent.
There are pages here so diverting or so grotesque that their
creator may with full justice be designated as the Oberlander
of the North. Not until one comes to the illustrations for
the popular tales, however, does one learn to know Kittelsen
the humorist in all his ingenuity. It was Werenskiold who
first discovered Kittelsen's gifts for drawing subjects of
this kind, and secured his co-operation in illustrating
Asbjornsen and Moe's Tales for Children. Their col-
laboration, covering the period 1 883-1 887, began in Munich
and was continued
in Norway, notably
during a sojourn at
Taato near Kra-
gero, where each of
the two produced

admirable

It was

combina-

efforts

his most
drawings,
an ideal
tion of
which Werenskiold
contributed his
solid, penetrating
realism and fine
draughtsmanship
and Kittelsen his
fabulous imagina-
tion and gift for
expression.

Kittelsen is by
and large the illus-
trator of tales par

Veslefrik Meets the Beggar Who Asks Him

for a Penny. Drawing by Theodor

Kittelsen

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

549

A Forest Path, by Theodor Kittelsen. Privately owned

excellence among all of those who have done such work either
in Norway or in other countries. He has delineated the
entire race of Norwegian trolls, those of the mountain and
those of the woods, the nixy and the water-troll, in fact,
all the goblins and demons of the land. How ingeniously
realistic is the drawing of the beggar whom Veslefrik the
Fiddler met on the mountainside and who asked him for a
penny in God's name! Altogether this man appears to
recognize no bounds whatever to the possibilities of repre-
sentation. He can depict the hen mourning and weeping in

550 SCANDINAVIAN ART

the churchyard, the fox preaching in ruff and cassock, and
the rabbit that laughed till he split his mouth from ear
to ear.

Besides being the master of grotesque humor and fantasy,
Kittelsen is notwithstanding probably the most sensitive and
the most lyrical nature poet in Norwegian art. For a period
of about two years he lived on one of the lonely Lofoten
Islands in a lighthouse among the breakers, companioned
by gulls and cormorants. It was here, in the course of
luminous summer nights and dark winter days that he
reached maturity as a landscape artist and poet. He has
collected his impressions from these days of isolation in the
lighthouses of Rost and Skomvcer under the title, From
Lofoten, a series of aquarelles published in 1890.

Three years later, in 1893, at the great Exposition in
Christiania, in addition to his caricatures, his rabble of trolls,
and the wild scenes from Lofoten, he was able to show
fourteen excellent aquarelles from his childhood home,
Jomfruland. The drawings were at once bought by Olaf
Schou, during those years our sole Norwegian Maecenas,
and by him presented to the National Gallery. The
Jomfruland series is the maturest fruit of Kittelsen's talent.
By extremely few and simple means — pencil and water
colors — he has perpetuated a sequence of distinct and
authentic landscape moods, almost all of which are captivat-
ing by reason of their pristine sentiment and naive execution.
Kittelsen died in 19 13.

Harriet Backer, born at Holmestrand in 1845, may
doubtless without contradiction be called the master among
the feminine painters of Norway. Her specialty is interiors,
and no artist in our country has managed to render colors
within doors more delicately, more voluminously, or more
thoroughly harmonized by force of personality. The man-
ner in which she can paint light, as it sifts into the living-
room of a farmhouse, flows over the worn surface of a table,
is shattered against a faded wall, glances upon a face, flames
in a red jacket, and finally in the corners of the room sinks
away in shadows saturated with color, is not excelled by any

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

551

Paris Interior With Young Woman Playing the Piano, by Harriet
Backer. In the National Gallery

other painter in the land. In 1874 Harriet Backer found
herself in Munich, where she spent four happy years in the
society of the most gifted generation of painters that has
gone forth from Norway. Here she met at the very outset
Eilif Peterssen, Heyerdahl, Werenskiold and Munthe,
Skredsvig and Kitty Kielland.

In Munich Froken Backer painted several significant pic-
tures, among others a sixteenth century Bavarian peasant
interior showing a lacewoman in the costume of the period
sitting bowed in melancholy thought. This painting, called
Solitude, was exhibited at the Salon of 1880, received an
honorable mention, and may be found reproduced in the
Gazette des Beaux-Arts of that year. As it happened,
Froken Backer had left Munich in 1878 in order to make use
of a Norwegian government stipend in Paris. Here Bonnat
became her teacher, and when she showed him as an example

552

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Interior from Stange Church, by Harriet Backer. In the National

Gallery

of her work the Bavarian interior with the lacewoman he
pronounced her a born painter who would some day do
honor to her native land.

Bonnat's judgment was justified in the event. Froken
Backer is in fact the one among the feminine artists of Nor-
way who is most truly a born painter, and even in the ranks
of her masculine colleagues she maintains a high standing.
There are few things in Norwegian art that have such a
degree of coherence in color and at the same time show such
delicate sentiment and powerful handling as distinguish
the best of her interiors, as witness the Brittany Interior in
Rasmus Meyer's collection at Bergen or the Peasant Inte-
rior in the gallery at Trondhjem or, to continue, the beauti-
ful picture, done in 1888, of a young lady with a piece of
embroidery in her hands sitting in a Paris interior with chairs
upholstered in blue and blue curtains at a window filled with
flowers. The last named canvas is now in a private gallery
in Christiania.

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

553

Peat-bog at Jaederen, by Kitty Kielland.
Gallery

In the National

Harriet Backer lived in Paris ten years, ten years of
glorious study, by her own testimony. In 1889 she returned
to Norway in order to paint nature in Norway and studies
on Norwegian subjects. During recent times she has spent
the winter in Christiania and has occupied her summers in
various parts of Norway, industriously engaged in painting
interiors of Norwegian farmhouses and churches. In later
years she has been specially attracted to old picturesque
church interiors. The grey plastered vault of an ancient
stone church, the greenish light of a summer day without,
shining through the windows of the choir, the dark figures
of the little congregation distributed over the floor spaces

554

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The White House by the Water, by Kitty Kielland. Privately owned

or kneeling at the altar, it is all seen with a vital sense for
pictorial effect and reproduced with untiring care and truth-
fulness in which there is no manner of sacrifice to dryness
and pettiness. Harriet Backer has also been a good and
persevering instructor of younger generations of Norwe-
gian painters, almost all of whom owe to her the foundation
of their training.

Kitty Kielland, a sister of Alexander Kielland, was bom
at Stavanger in 1843. In 1873 she came to Karlsruhe as a
pupil of Gude, but two years later she removed to Munich
and joined that group of talented painters and good com-
rades to which Harriet Backer also belonged. Here Kitty
Kielland produced as a beginning her first still life, yet as
early as the spring of 1876 she returned home in order to
paint nature in Norway. In her own country she found at
once her special field. The early studies from the peat-
bogs of Jaederen with their black, swampy earth spreading
for miles beneath lofty, marching skies have the character
and individuality of true art. One of her pictures from
Jaederen with a theme of this sort, Peat-bog, now in
the National Gallery, is weighted with melancholy and

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 555

majestic loneliness. Never since that time has Kitty Kiel-
land struck so deep a minor note. Still she has often come
back to the peat-bogs of Jaederen and recorded other moods.
Kitty Kielland died in 19 14.

Another able portrayer of the nature of Jaederen is
Nicolai Ulfsten, who was born in 1854 and died in 1885.
He, too, was a pupil of Gude; later he studied one winter
in Paris, and in 1879 made a journey by way of Trieste and
Venice to Egypt. It was the desert sands and the blazing
sunlight which drew him thither. Among his paintings are
A Street Scene in Cairo and A Halt in the Desert, both of
which are now in the Bergen Galley. His eyes, however,
could not endure the blinding sunshine, and he had to turn
his course homeward. On his arrival in his own country he
settled down in Jaederen. Here he worked intensely, pro-
ducing several large pictures the themes of which are drawn
from the life of fisherfolk and from the natural features of
the region. Later he removed to Christiania, but only to die
of consumption at the early age of thirty-one. Ulfsten has
depicted the fisherman of Jaederen in sea-boots and south-
wester, in his boat or ashore, fishing for roach in the waters
of Stavanger, seeking shelter in the smooth anchorage of a
harbor of refuge, or arresting his walk along the beach at
the sudden discovery of a dead body washed into the shal-
lows by the last storm.

Karl Edvard Diriks was born in Christiania, 1855. After
taking the examination preliminary to matriculation at the
University Diriks went abroad to study architecture; in the
course of his work he visited Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, and even-
tually the Bauakademie in Berlin. Here he saw much of
the group to which Krohg and Klinger belonged, and at
length he decided to forsake architecture in favor of paint-
ing. For a time he studied in Weimar, but returned later to
Christiania, where he made his home and continued painting
till 1882. In that year he went to Paris, and fell under the
influence of the impressionists. He has made two trips of
some duration to Spain, Southern France, and Italy, and
since the late nineties has resided permanently in Paris.

556 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Pier in a Storm, by Edvard Diriks. Owned in Bergen

In spite of his long sojourn abroad there is in reality
nothing of the European cast about Diriks' art. On the
contrary, he has in recent years attracted attention among
foreigners as a peculiarly Norwegian type, as regards both
his personality and his art. Nor is it possible to detect in
his paintings any evidence of his architectural beginnings.
It is just the architectonically constructive or draughting ele-
ment that is lacking in his landscape art. For that matter,
the subjects he chooses by preference, such as storm, sleet,
wind, fog, are not adapted to the stricter methods of design.

Diriks is a decided impressionist, and his work as a whole
stands or falls according to the intensity with which he is
able to express a mood through color. In his earlier years
he was closely associated with the youthful Thaulow; in
certain respects he was also influenced by Krohg. It has
always been his chief aim to bring pervading atmosphere and
light into his canvases. Beyond that, Diriks has become
more and more a painter of the weather, particularly of bad
weather. Atrocious winter weather drifts and storms and
howls and whines through his pictures. There is everlasting
slush and mud and mire on roads and piers, and fog that lies
wallowing above crashing drift ice in the harbor. It is the

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

557

From Vestre Aker, by Edvard Dlriks

beloved, inhospitable winter of our own Norwegian coast
that speaks to us through this art, and therefore we love it.

Diriks' pictures have of late years attracted considerable
attention in Europe, especially in the radical art circles of
Paris. It is probably just the brutal strength in his paint-
ings that has appealed to the refined Parisians because it
carries proof of real temperament. And therefore French-
men have honored Diriks — the painter of the wind, they call
him — much more than have his own countrymen. Of recent
times, during which Diriks has lived continuously in Paris,
he has of course treated French themes, themes of a wholly
different and lighter character, as witness, for example, the
large sunny canvas, Isle de France, in the National Gallery.

Intimately allied with the naturalist Werenskiold and the
landscapist Munthe we find Jacob Gloersen, the painter of
the forests in the Eastland. The son of a clergyman in Tele-
marken, he was born at Vinje in 1852. He, too, first visited
the schools of Munich; but at an early age he came to the
conviction that the right thing was to keep in immediate
touch with nature and to follow it alone. These principles
he faithfully persevered in throughout life. The sum of

558

SCANDINAVIAN ART

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 559

his aesthetic tenets may be formulated in a single sentence:
One should paint nature as it is ; yet there are things in nature
that are not worth painting. Hunter, lover of the open, and
tenacious pedestrian as he was, he lived for the most part
in the woods and among the mountains and so became the
portrayer of the spruce forest and of winter in the inland
regions of eastern Norway. His pictures bear titles such
as Winter, Hauling Timber, The Snow Storm, A Thaw.
The fine picture, Hunting Woodcocks, is to be found in the
National Gallery. Gloersen's art is so unaffected and sober
that his paintings at times narrowly escape photographic
dryness. Even so they carry the appeal of truth and sin-
cerity. Moreover, if he lets himself go and uses the broad
brush, he shows a fresh and flowing style equalled by few.
Still his stroke can be suave and careful. Nothing else is so
soft as motionless air filled with falling snow. This Gloer-
sen has painted. Jacob Gloersen died in 19 12.

Fredrik Kolsto was born at Haugesund in i860. At the
age of seventeen he came to Munich, and there painted in
1880 his first genre picture, A Norwegian Fisherman's
Home. He reached maturity so early that, after his return
to Norway the following spring, he was able during the sub-
sequent summer to finish the large painting which in its way
still remains his masterpiece, A Stril at the Bergen Fish-
market. By its realism and bold, broad, palette knife tech-
nique the picture created a sensation at the Exhibition of the
same year, and contributed considerably to the current talk
about a school of daubing. After a sojourn in Paris in 1885
he painted a Studio Interior, now in the gallery at Trond-
hjem, which probably is the best work he has done. It is a
thoroughly impressionistic canvas, executed with the extreme
decomposing technique used by the pointillists.

VII
THE INTERMEDIATE GENERATION

THE group of painters who received their initiation
during the stress and struggle of the eighties has been
called the Intermediate Generation. Between the gen-
eration of the seventies, which returned home from Munich
and Paris, and the generation of the nineties, which again
sallied forth, this time to Copenhagen and Italy, there is the
younger company of naturalists who went through their
apprenticeship at home in Christiania, mostly under Thau-
low and Krohg. Almost all of the painters in this class are
to a greater or lesser degree to be counted as colorists. Their
weakness lies throughout in draughtsmanship, their limita-
tion in an imperfectly developed sense of style. On the other
hand, freshness and immediacy of conception, a natural
vision for what is pictorial, and boldness of treatment have
been their strength. Certain among these colorists have
used to advantage the impressionistic method of color divi-
sion and attained great things in rendering the force of light.
The sunshine of the pupils often caused the paintings of their
masters to pale by comparison at the exhibitions. Just as
frequently, however, they took delight in dull and mournful
harmonies in grey and blunt colors.

The lives of the poor and the homes of the lowly have
a conspicuous place in their art. When it comes to land-
scapes, too, they avoid all ostentatious beauty. With the
democratic thinking of the time they are in close sympathy,
and the pessimism of the eighties throws its shadow over
their cheerfulness. The full measure of opposition and con-
tempt that fell to their share goaded them to bitterness and

560

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 561

a desire to offend. Still a beneficial sense of standing with-
out the pale of society and of being free Bohemians sustained
their longing for independence. On the whole, they were
most successful in maintaining themselves artistically so long
as naturalism still awaited recognition. The wave of polit-
ical and intellectual radicalism that swept over the country
bore them up. When the reaction came, the weaker char-
acters among them were washed into back eddies and
remained floating there. Others of their number, more
adaptable and fitted to survive, shaped a fresh course at the
breaking of the new day.

Among the intermediate men Wentzel is the most impor-
tant and the first who assumed a leading position. Nils
Gustav Wentzel was born in Christiania in 1859. He made
his debut as a painter with a picture from his father's car-
penter shop, which the principal connoisseurs of Kunst-
foreningen judged to be too realistic and therefore refused
to show at the exhibitions of the society. It was the rejec-
tion of this work that drew attention to the young painter
and made him known, for the refusal of his picture precipi-
tated open warfare between the artists and the reactionary
directors of the society. And it was on this occasion that
the artists in 1882 instituted a systematic strike against
Kunstforeningen, which lasted about two years and resulted
in victory for the artists.

Wentzel's masterpiece, The Breakfast, now in the Na-
tional Gallery, is from the same year, 1882. The picture is
the most skilfully painted and the most authentic example
of milieu portraiture in Norwegian art. With a keenness
of vision that captures all details the artist gives us a glimpse
of a workingman's simple home in its morning neglige. The
room with its lilac-grey wallpaper, the woman in her night-
dress cutting bread, the boy gulping coffee from a cup while
holding a piece of bread and butter in his hand, the break-
fast table without a cloth, the sooty copper kettle and the
flowered dishes — it is all there and it is all presented with
brilliant verisimilitude. Further, the interior revealing the
trundle bed packed with bedclothes, the photographs on the

562

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Breakfast, by Nils Gustav Wentzel, 1882. In the National Gallery

wall, the skirt tossed over the stove, and the view of the side
room with its painted shade through which the morning sun-
light falls coldly — the whole is reproduced with intense love
of the theme and with vivid delight in the material itself.
The coloring, as well, shows an admirable mastery of the
subject.

Three years later Wentzel painted a new, a larger, Break-
fast Table, which also is in the National Gallery. The
artist had in the meantime been abroad, had visited Paris,
and had seen the impressionists. He had developed in tech-
nique and had strengthened his perception of color. Every-
thing which in his first Breakfast Table was pettily conceived
or pedantically executed because the painter was blinded
through staring at details, is here spacious, broad, pictur-
esque. As a whole it is one of the most vigorously painted
canvases in Norwegian art of the eighties. A working-
man's little family is assembled about the breakfast table
on a winter morning beneath a lighted lamp. The charac-
terization of the figures is excellent, the story is told with
truth and sincerity, and the small fairhaired girl kneeling

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 563

The Confirmation Party, by Nils Gustav Wentzel. In the National Gallery

half-dressed on a chair, clad in a red skirt and a white
chemise, is a fascinating piece of painting. The great value
of the picture lies, however, in the dexterity with which the
twofold light is managed, the conflict between the warm
orange tones from the lamplight and the cold blue shadows
and reflections from the morning light that sifts in at the
window behind the lowered shade on which is pictured Our
Savior's Church. It is excellent painting by a young master,
rich with promise for the future.

Unfortunately it cannot be said that Wentzel has fulfilled
this promise in his later production. He has painted several
good interiors from the living-rooms of farmhouses with
country people about the table, and the like. He has also
painted figures in the open, as in the large picture called
Rural Dance in Saetersdal. Yet not even the best of these
paintings approach his breakfast pieces in pictorial quality.
Still less valuable are his many hastily executed, roughly

564 SCANDINAVIAN ART

handled landscapes, particularly winter scenes. The narrow
circumstances of art in Norway compelled him to descend
to production in mass. For a time his work even degener-
ated into inexcusable daubing, altogether unworthy of his
great native talent. Meanwhile the canvases by which he is
represented in the National Gallery, the two breakfast pic-
tures and the splendidly told, sedulously treated figure com-
position, The Confirmation Party, dating from 1887, be-
sides two or three other capable performances from his
earlier period, will always assure an honorable place for
Nils Gustav Wentzel in the history of Norwegian painting.

At Wentzel's side stands Eyolf Soot, who was born in
1859. His mother, Birgitte Lie, was a sister of Erika
Nissen, and was herself a gifted pianist. Eyolf Soot spent
his early boyhood in America, but after the death of his
father the family returned to Norway. He received his
first training in Christiania ; later he studied under Krohg's
teacher Gussow in Berlin. Soot has also been in Paris,
where he worked in Bonnat's atelier.

Soot's production has not been abundant; but he has
brought out certain exceptionally solid things. The little
picture from the year 1886, which he has called The Bridal
Procession, in which one does not see the procession at all
but only the reflection of it in the observant faces of two
children on a balcony, who follow the absorbing pageantry
with their eyes, is painted in brilliant sunshine and still de-
spite the light effect has a fine greyish tone. The reputation
that he gained by this small work Soot has farther increased
by two or three other sunlight scenes, and especially by the
excellent portrait of Jonas Lie and his wife and the large
figure composition entitled Welcome, both of which are now
in the National Gallery.

Soot's contribution, though not very copious, gives the
impression of being the result of a tremendous exertion of
energy by means of which all that is frolicsome and restless
in his temperament has been subjugated to a will that is
determined to see things soberly. Nevertheless, the unquiet
spirit crackles and sparkles through the pigments. Soot

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 565

Jonas Lie and His Wife, by Eyolf Soot. In the
National Gallery

has the blood of the Lies in his veins. His mother and Jonas
Lie were cousins, and it would almost seem as if the half-
tamed, runaway, visionary temperament that gives to Jonas
Lie's style its polychromatic, impressionistic vitality is dis-
coverable once more in the coloring of Soot. His themes
may be simple enough, and may even have an everyday cast.
A door opens, and a youthful peasant couple steps into the
room and bids the aged mother-in-law good-day — the wife
first, the husband after her. They shake hands in the slow,
measured fashion of country people. Yet the way in which
the incident is narrated in color is positively ebullient; and
through the open door, bordered by the dark shadow tones
of the balcony, we catch a glimpse, behind the two who are
coming in, of a lush landscape in summer green lying bathed

566 SCANDINAVIAN ART

in glittering sunshine and of two diminutive men walking
far down in the fields. The contrast gives an excellent effect.

The Jonas Lie portrait is also good; it presents very natu-
rally an episode from daily life. The novelist is sitting with
his legs crossed, reading a paper before a white lacquered
door in his apartments in Paris. His wife comes in and
bends over him to ask a question about something or other.
He lowers the paper and lifts his head in an interrogating
attitude, yet with an absent gaze behind his eye-glasses. The
long, sinewy, nervous hand rests idly on the arm of the chair.
The whole presents a picture of a man who lives his own
individual life of imagination and thought, far from the
world. The coloring is strong and animated, impression-
istically decomposed in a manner hitherto unknown in Nor-
wegian painting, handled with a sensitive and as it were
quivering touch. Soot's more recent production unfortu-
nately cannot be said to have fulfilled the great promise of
his youthful works in the National Gallery.

In the first rank of the younger company of naturalists
who followed upon the master group of the eighties headed
by Krohg, Halfdan Strom took a place at his initial appear-
ance. Strom was born in Christiania in 1863. At an early
age he journeyed to Munich, where he worked about half a
year at the Academy, but soon returned to Christiania and
continued painting on his own score. He was still under
twenty when he showed his first picture, and from 1886 he
went on exhibiting each year at the Autumn Exposition until
he set out for Paris in 1892 in order to prepare his ground
anew under the direction of Roll. Like Wentzel, Strom
began by practising the principles of naturalistic painting
upon his immediate surroundings. In the corners of small
workshops, in the doorways of cramped living-rooms, in
third-class cafes, and in narrow streets inhabited by working-
men he set up his easel ; and he drew his themes from the
veriest reality. Examples are his Tailor's Shop, dated 1886,
A Shoemaker's Shop, 1887, and In the Restaurant, 1888.

Furthermore, when he spent the summer in the country,
unlike the others he did not scour the open for beautiful sub-

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 567

jects. Rather he insinuated himself into the men's quarters
during the midday hour of rest, into the rank, close air where
men with heavy limbs sprawled upon the beds, sleeping and
puffing and snoring. He delighted in turning his artist's
eye toward an interior of this kind, illuminated by the cold
blue light filtering in from the north through small muddied
window panes. Such surroundings had for him a certain
mood and a finely adjusted beauty of color. A case in point
is his Midday Rest, done in 1890, and now in the Gallery
in Venice.

Strom's principal work from this earlier period is never-
theless The Restaurant, now in the National Gallery. When
this canvas, with its life-size figures from the cafe of the
Workingmen's Society, was shown at the Autumn Exposi-
tion of 1888, it was received with decided ill-will. The press
and the public were as one in rejecting art of so low an order
and on themes so commonplace. The selfsame picture was
exhibited at the International Exposition in Munich of 1901,
was there awarded a gold medal, and now occupies a place of
honor in the National Gallery. The painting deserves nothing
less. It is one of the most promising and most mature works
from the hand of a young artist that has ever appeared in
Norway. The characterization of the figures is superb,
whether one looks at the big, clumsy waitress, the flirtatious
cavalier leaning over the counter with his top hat pushed
back on his head, or the grey, starveling boy who lolls on a
stool in the foreground, munching a thick slice of bread and
butter. The coloring of the picture is excellently managed
by means of deep grey, brownish, and yellow tones. The
piece shows such maturity as a pictorial achievement that
it is difficult to believe that it could have been done unless,
the artist had previously seen Manet and the other modern
Frenchmen. Yet it was not until the following summer
that Strom was enabled to make his first little journey to
Paris on the stipend of 250 kroner, his sole perquisite from
the picture.

Things of this sort Strom painted preferably during his
youth. He was no parlor naturalist. Cold, grey, pessimis-

568

SCANDINAVIAN ART

tic were his canvases, with a touch of blue frost in the
coloring, with the merciless light of common day upon nar-
row circumstances and daily toil. There was in Strom
the metal of a socialistic painter. He had just the right
acridity in the pigments and never the slightest concession to
lukewarm bourgeois notions of the beautiful, the attractive.
Nevertheless, Strom did not become a socialistic painter.

In the Restaurant, by Halfdan Strom. In the National Gallery

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

569

Under the Pines, by Halfdan Strom. In the National Gallery

Apparently missing among his gifts was that stiff steel spring
that pushes a work to the very end, and makes of the artist's
life one single, inflexible effort directed by consciousness of
a fixed purpose.

He left Norway, came under the influence of French
Salon art, and in 1892 made use of a larger stipend in
studying under the guidance of Roll. This French artist
stamped an ineradicable impression upon Strom, not least
through his personality. Roll, too, had begun as a socialistic
painter. His Strike in a Mine is a celebrated picture from
the eighties, bearing the stamp of Zola's social view of art;
but in time Roll's work became lighter and more insouciant,
even approaching a noisy expression of the joy of life. Open
air, sunshine, green meadows and spring foliage, nude
women, laughing nymphs, and desirous fauns dance over his
canvases. His method also changes, and becomes broad,
light, superficial.

These qualities were in part communicated to Strom's
art, and they altered its character. Thereto must be added

570 SCANDINAVIAN ART

personal experiences — wedded happiness and family life.
His production showed a sudden reversal, and became an
actual flight from poverty and the proletarian world and
the shabby restaurants. Now it grew to be rather a glorifi-
cation of woman and of home. Sunshine and summer and
children, maturity and motherliness in a beautiful woman
— these are the constantly recurring themes for a period of
years. Technically, too, his pictures are changed, his brush
has taken on a dashing and sweeping stroke, now and then
approaching superficiality, or he leans toward soft, subdued,
refined harmonies like those cultivated by Thaulow.

Strom's best painting from this time is without much doubt
The Young Mother, which was bought for the Luxembourg,
an intuitive seizing upon the subconscious, vegetative soul
life of woman in the office of motherhood, executed with
tender feeling for the subject. Strom's later work, in which
there is a large number of portraits to order, has been of
inconstant value. Occasionally it has tended toward soft-
ness and blandness. Yet suddenly he takes a fresh grip
and by great expense of energy produces a larger and more
serious performance which once more brings his original
and ample talents into notice. Such is the piece entitled
Under the Pines, done in 1908, and now in the National
Gallery.

Since 191 1 Strom has been actively associated with Krohg
as a professor at the little Academy of Painting which the
government finally has allowed to our art life and which is
being conducted with very humble means in Christiania.
Strom has undoubtedly given much of his strength to this
teaching service, in which he is truly zealous. Furthermore,
a good part of his time has been taken up with various
positions of public trust in our art life, which his inter-
mediate station between the parties has frequently assigned
to him. Thus for several years he has been reelected as a
member of the board of directors in the Society of Artists,
of the juries at the annual exhibitions, and of the purchasing
committee of the National Gallery.

Among the painters belonging to this group of naturalists

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

571

The Pavilion After Snowfall, by Jorgen Sorensen. In the National

Gallery

may be enumerated also Jorgen Sorensen, Sven Jorgensen,
Kalle Lochen, Signe Scheel, Marie Tannaes, Jacob Bratland,
and Gudmund Stenersen. The most gifted of the land-
scapists who followed the banner of open-air naturalism and
gathered about Thaulow at Modum was Jorgen Sorensen,
who was born in Christiania in 1861. His production has
been fluent, he has painted many things, and always after
nature. His most important picture, called February, 2°
Centigrade, Vestre Aker, done in 1887, now hangs in the
National Gallery. The title may appear affected, but is
in reality very appropriate as an indication of the character
of the piece, with such fineness have the shadings in the
mood of this winter day been observed and with such pre-
cision and truth have they been reproduced. In just this
manner the frozen roadway crunches under foot; just so a
leafless tree delineates itself against the sky in the clear and
delicate atmosphere of winter, and just so palely falls the
sunshine with blue shadows upon patches of snow and upon

572 SCANDINAVIAN ART

yellow tussocks along the road skirting the parsonage of
Vestre Aker on a beautiful day in February when light frost
gives a tang to the air. Here naturalism has reached the
goal. It is impossible to go farther than this in the actual
imitation of nature and in expressive sincerity.

Related to this picture, but lighter and more brilliant, is
the other winter scene by Jorgen Sorensen in the possession
of the National Gallery, The Pavilion after Snowfall. The
old Empire summer house is lying like a golden Greek
temple beneath snow and sunshine in the middle of the
garden of an old country seat in the environs of Christiania.
The contrast between the antique architectural forms and
the half impressionistic, modern style of painting has a
charm of its own; and the coloring is diaphanous and light
as in an early Sisley or Pissarro.

Jorgen Sorensen has also executed with true feeling
summer landscapes from the Eastland on a small scale,
watercourses with grist mills, and the like. As a painter of
winter scenes he stands out as the best pupil of Thaulow,
and sometimes excels his master in sincerity and strength
of tone. Now and then his talent approaches the vein of
Gerhard Munthe in the green summer pieces. After an
individual and personal fashion he combines the qualities
of these two masters. The artistic life of Jorgen Sorensen,
however, was not of long duration. He was a cripple, his
health was frail, and he soon succumbed. Edvard Munch,
a friend of his youth, has painted his portrait The large
soulful eyes speak impressively from the open countenance
with its gentle and sensitive features. The portrait may
be seen in the National Gallery. Jorgen Sorensen died in
1894, and in his death Norwegian painting suffered a real
loss.

Sven Jorgensen was born in Drammen in 1861, and dur-
ing his early years studied both in Munich and in Paris.
Before and also after his stay abroad he has lived at Slagen,
a fishing village near Tonsberg on the Christiania fjord.
Among the fishermen and farmers living there in humble
circumstances he found abundant material for his simple

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

573

Unemployed, by Sven Jorgensen. In the National Gallery

and intimate treatment of life. His pictures bear titles
such as Unemployed, The Widow, Religious Devotion,
The Son, Departure from Home, and others of the kind.
Quite evidently, the titles are like Tidemand's. The pic-
tures decidedly are not. Sven Jorgensen's view of life is
by no means gay; nor is it bitter. A gentle resignation
speaks through his art. Even when he portrays an unem-
ployed man sitting in the midst of his family with idle hands
and dully gazing eyes, there is no really didactic tendency
in the painting. And he has been able to picture the widow
and her children, gathered about a dish of herrings and
potatoes, with such warm sympathy and such equipoise of
mind that a tinge of good fortune actually seems to illumine
the brave struggle against poverty that is being waged in
the crowded cottage.

Sven Jorgensen's art is unpretending as his themes. No
creative delight in the material itself casts a gleam about it,
as in the case of Wentzel. Still his unostentatious and

574 SCANDINAVIAN ART

indigent orchestration is by no means lacking in color
quality. On the contrary, it is almost always expressive,
homogeneous with the subject, and a vehicle of the mood.
In linear construction Jorgensen's pictures are the strongest
that have come from this group of painters. They are not
merely casual, more or less engaging excerpts, but well
planned and built up from within.

Among the youthful naturalists of the epoch none was
more notorious for a kind of pettifoggery than Kalle
Lochen, who was born in 1865. Canvases such as After a
Sleepless Night and From My Window irritated the better
part of the public and incensed the press, both by their
themes and by their dashing, reckless handling. Yet his
best pictures approached Munch's in simplicity and refine-
ment of coloring.

An artist with true and fine gifts for color, though with
a limited technique, is Signe Scheel. Behind her heavily
laboring brush, which seduously heaps up treasures of shad-
ing, one discerns a delicate and shy womanliness. In 1896
she showed her first picture of importance, entitled Behold,
I am the Handmaid of the Lord, in which there are traces
of cross influences from old Italian art and French im-
pressionism. Her best picture, however, has for its sub-
ject a farmyard -with the whitish-grey wall of a house
shining in the sunlight and shifting into a multiplicity of half-
tones in the shadows. Her persevering attention to the
wealth of tone gives to this piece unusual materiality and
power. She has also made interesting studies of lamplight
which betray her enthusiasm for Rembrandt, an enthusiasm
that nevertheless makes no diminution of her originality.

Marie Tannaes stands close to Signe Scheel, and divides
with her the honor of being the most significant of the
many feminine painters who associated themselves with the
open-air movement in the eighties. She has been an in-
dustrious and very productive landscapist; and her land-
scapes, for the most part upon autumnal themes, are exe-
cuted with a broad and juicy brush.

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 575

Jacob Bratland painted his most important picture in
1888, under the title After a Night of Watching, showing a
father and mother at the sickbed of their child. This work
was awarded a second-class medal at the Universal Exposi-
tion. In the National Gallery hangs a painting of his
called Sunday, done in 1891, a well told and naturally
treated country idyll representing a young boy and a girl
instituting an acquaintance of a Sunday morning on the
green adjoining the church.

Gudmund Stenersen also is among those who made their
debut in the late eighties, but who still belong to the
naturalistic group. His best things originated in the region
of Jsederen. Here he got his theme for the large canvas,
instinct with feeling, that presents young men and women
resting about a bonfire on St. John's Eve and listening to
the notes of a violoncello, each wrapped in his own thoughts,
beneath the flickering, fantastic firelight. There is a kind
of Protean variety about Stenersen's art. He is most suc-
cessful with pen and ink, in which cases his technique ap-
proaches that of Werenskiold.

The most gifted among the young figure painters who
about 1890 took up rural life for renewed treatment is
August Eiebakke, who was born in 1867. He studied dur-
ing one winter under Zahrtmann in Copenhagen, an ex-
perience that came to have decisive importance for his
subsequent development. Later he continued his training
in Paris, and thereafter through a longer sojourn in Italy.
In the National Gallery is to be found his most notable
work, from the year 1891, entitled Making Preparations or
The Arrival of Visitors. With excellent power of charac-
terization and brilliant technique he portrays here the main
living-room in a country home, in the foreground a table
decked with linen upon which a young girl is placing the
best that the house affords, while the guests wait in the
background. As regards material the picture is one of the
most skillfully painted in Norwegian art. In addition the
figures indicate close observation of rustic manners and
usages. It is the last word in imitation of reality.

576

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Making Preparations, by August Eiebakke. In the National Gallery

It may well be said that in Eiebakke's Making Prepara-
tions the illusionism of the eighties finds its last pregnant
expression. Even in the large, pale Summer Night's Land-
scape with which Oda Krohg made her debut in 1886 there
is a new and more lyric mood, a mild echo of Edvard
Munch's color j3oetry. There is something remarkably
delicate and tender and occult about this picture of the flesh-
colored house sleeping in the bosom of the blue summer
night. A young woman's longing for the poetic and the
mystical here declares itself. Oda Krohg, the wife of the
painter, Professor Christian Krohg, was born in Christiania
in i860. She is not a painter by vocation, but something of
a brilliant dilettante in taste and force of emotion. She
spent a number of years in Paris, where she was occupied
with a sort of colored work upon leather in the form of
book-bindings for the Parisian art market. In 1900 she
resumed painting and produced a very good portrait of the
author Guhnar Heiberg, done in lamplight with great
breadth and power. This work was one of the chief can-

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 577

Portrait of the Author Gunnar Heiberg, by Oda Krohg. In the
National Museum, Stockholm

vases at the Norwegian exhibition in Stockholm in 1903,
and was bought for the Swedish National Museum.

That departure from the naturalistic and realistic style
which most strikingly marks the nineties also had a strong
effect on the lyrical painter of Nordland, Thorolf Holmboe.
Holmboe was born in Helgeland in 1866, and in 1886 went
to Berlin, where he became the last pupil of Gude; later
he visited Italy, and for a considerable time lived in Paris.
His studies under Gude were of decisive influence upon his
development, particularly as a marine painter. Holmboe's
earlier sea-pieces were of an altogether realistic character.

578

SCANDINAVIAN ART

:-;: ' '

The Aker River, by Thorolf Holmboe. In the National Gallery

No sooner, however, did the conventional decorative move-
ment in art, which during the nineties spread from England
throughout Europe, reach us than he took part in it. More-
over, in sympathy with the new romantic-lyrical poetry
that came into vogue at the same time, especially in the
verse of Vilhelm Krag, Holmboe drew farther and farther
away from realism and open-air painting. The soft evening
moods of the enthusiast, with simplified lines and decorative
contrasts in color now became characteristic of his painting.
In recent years, however, he has abandoned these literary
moods. More resolutely and directly he attacks the
artistic problems that reality brings before him. His
palette has gained thereby in richness and force of ex-
pression. The National Gallery has a good picture of his
from this period in a view of the Aker River at Vaterland

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 579

with misty spring moonlight upon the wilderness of roofs
and the gleaming course of the river. Holmboe is a very
prolific artist. He has also been active as an illustrator. In
sketches for covers and title pages, for book-bindings and
tapestries he has demonstrated an inexhaustible and fluent
gift for decorative composition.

Lars Jorde, too, who was born in 1865, 1S m°st properly
to be placed in this transitional period. His Christmas
Festival, with the brilliantly illuminated farmhouse and the
sleighs waiting in the moonlight, now hangs in the National
Gallery. He associated himself with the group which went
to Denmark and Italy, and there he received lasting im-
pressions from foreign and from ancient art. Since that
time he has lived at Lillehammer, and has dedicated his
brush to the portrayal of nature in the Uplands of Norway,
winter and spring, now in the spirit of Collett and now in
the vein of younger contemporaries.

VIII
MUNCH

IN the foregoing consideration of later Norwegian paint-
ing one name has been purposely omitted because it can-
not be classified in any school or in any close group of
comrades, but stands out strong and solitary in the current
of events — the name of Edvard Munch. Edvard Munch,
Norway's greatest painter, is descended from an aristocratic
family of purely Norwegian blood, a family that originated
in a mountain province and which throughout the nineteenth
century has left its impress upon the intellectual life of the
land. One man of genius the house has produced before
Edvard Munch, namely his uncle, the historian Peter
Andreas Munch, the author of the History of the Norwegian
People.

Edvard Munch's father was a district physician at Loiten
in Hedemarken, and here the son was born in 1863.
Although Munch is thus well on his way toward sixty, he is
nevertheless the most prominent figure, indeed the central
figure, among younger Norwegian painters. His name
marks the great point of division in the art of his country,
the turning point from realism and illusionism in painting to
a wholly personal interpretation and to an artistic execution
that in power and beauty is without contemporary parallel in
the Scandinavian kingdoms. Munch's art took its departure
from the naturalism of the eighties, to begin with, and he
stood rather near Krohg and Heyerdahl. Yet even in the
early phases of his production there is a more spiritual ele-
ment than in the work of the naturalists. Greater lightness
of body in the coloring, greater charm and inspiration in pic-

580

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

581

torial treatment, and first and last a more soulful quality are
the marks of his manner.

Even Munch's purely realistic portraits of a remote date,
such as the wonderful likeness of Hans Jaeger, show an
intuitive perception of personality and an unexampled ability
in concentrating
characteristics and
making them ex-
pressive of m o o d.
As the anarchistic
reformer of society ^
sits there, for the
moment flagging
and disappointed,
bitter and poor and
freezing in a cold
back room, with hat
and coat on and with
a glass before him, ■
the picture presents
not only Hans Jae-
ger himself in an hour of disillusion, but the whole sum of
pessimism and contempt for humanity that marked the
Bohemians of the eighties. As regards pure painting,
Munch's portrait of himself from the year 1895 is probably
not on a par with the Jaeger portrait; the coloring is thinner
in its blue uniformity. Yet what spiritual exaltation shines
out from the canvas ! This proud and lonely man, standing
before our eyes as in a vision, illumined by the sheen of mys-
tical footlights and wrapped in blue shadows, is the magician
who has produced Edvard Munch's remarkable, painful and
yet irradiating art.

It was in 1883 that Munch showed his first picture, entitled
The Sick Child. This painting, now universally recognized
as one of the masterpieces in Norwegian art, so sensitive in
conception, so powerful in handling, so exuberant in pictorial
effect, and so sublimely simple in theme as it is, did not at the
time of its appearance gain general acceptation, even among

Morning, by Edvard Munch

582

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Portrait of Hans Jaeger, by Edvard Munch. In the National Gallery

artists. It came into being during the period of the indurated
worship of reality that stamped the eighties. The picture,
moreover, was a veritable gauntlet cast in the face of photo-
graphic realism; it was sheer feeling, enveloped in a veil of
lovely color. It gave little hint of the stuffs in the clothing,
little account of day and hour; it was on the whole not much
of a corner of actuality, to use the phrase of the time, but a

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

583

Portrait of Himself, by Edvard Munch. In the National Gallery

vital creation of temperament. Out from a warmly tinted
twilight gleams the pale profile of a child, framed in golden
red hair. At one side appears more faintly the mother,
bowed in weeping against the invalid's chair. The lines of
the composition are inimitably joined into harmony in the
picture, where two beings that have been closely united are

584

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Sick Child, by Edvard Munch. In the National Gallery

now tenderly drawn apart from each other. The wings of
death cast their shadow over this picture.

Another painting from Munch's youth, during which he
himself often went through hard sieges of illness, also car-
ries us into the sick room ; this work, entitled Spring, dated
1889, now has a place in the National Gallery. As an
example of plain and firm composition the piece is without
parallel; in thoroughgoing coloristic construction it is per-
fect; as a presentation from life and as a rendering of mood
it is impressive. The first warm day of spring has come.
The chair in which the sick young girl rests has been moved
to the open window, and there she is sitting languidly relaxed
among the pillows, sensing the stream of air that wafts over

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

585

586

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Girls on the Bridge, by Edvard Munch. In the National Gallery

her. A breeze freighted with the redolent odors of earth
fills at the moment the light curtain so that it swells into the
semblance of a sail. As if in gratitude for this, boon the
glance of the convalescent turns toward the bent old mother,
who with her knitting has taken a seat near at hand and fol-
lows intently the expression on the features of the invalid.
No word is spoken, but the silence is charged with quivering
hopes, and the spring sun floods the ensemble of colors. It
is life upon luminous wings that hovers over this picture.

As a landscapist Munch is in the first instance the por-
trayer of the Northern summer night. No one has equaled
him in catching the mystical quality of limpid summer nights,

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 587

The Island, by Edvard Munch. Privately owned in Christiania

with crowns of mighty trees above slumbering white houses
and the pallid, veiled tones along the shallow beaches. Yet
against this soft background he frequently masses the re-
sounding splendor of pure colors from the dresses of young
girls or women into the very foreground of the picture. It is
characteristic of Munch's art that it often veers from the
suave and lyrical to the most intense energy of coloristic
expression, which occasionally does not stop short even of
brutality. He is typically Norwegian both in his lyricism and
in his violence, both in his morbid dreaminess and in his wide-
awake, alertly sentient perception of reality.

In the summer of 1888 Munch made his first stay at
Aasgaardstrand, a little fishing village on the Christiania
fjord, whose beautiful natural features have provided sub-
jects for more than one Norwegian painter. Here he received
the inspiration for several pictures marked by intense feeling,

588

SCANDINAVIAN ART

such as his lovely Starry Night, now owned by Fridtjof Nan-
sen, and The Girls on the Bridge, in the National Gallery.
In 1 892, as it happened, Edvard Munch was invited by the
Art Society of Berlin to exhibit there. Munch came, the
paintings were hung in the Arkitektenhaus, the exhibition
opened, and was immediately closed. The public were
enormously scandalized, the papers were filled with articles
for and against the Norwegian anarchistic artist, and the Art
Society, after a stormy session, split into two factions which
ever since have been irreconcilably opposed to each other.
Under the leadership of Liebermann 130 artists left the
Society and formed a new association with exhibitions of their
own, thereafter known as the Secessionists. Munch presently
opened a private exhibition, and his fame soon spread abroad.
The collection went the rounds of various German cities,
Diisseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg, and Munich, and subse-

Death Enters the Room, by Edvard Munch. In the National Gallery

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

589

The Kiss. Wood-cut by Edvard Munch

quently to Copenhagen and Stockholm. Everywhere it caused
offence, strongly tinctured nevertheless with admiration. In
Berlin Munch and Strindberg met. Later Obstfelder and
Vigeland joined them. It was a fruitful concurrence of talent,
which no doubt had inspiring results for each and all of these
intellectuals. Munch's paintings from this period have with-
out exception erotic themes, and bear titles such as Jealousy,
The Vampire — a woman kissing a man's neck and swath-
ing him in her hair, Woman's Love and its variant The
Madonna, as this masterly presentation of the moment of
conception has later been called.

Universal and international in scope as these speculative
works are, they have gained for Munch, throughout the
centres of culture and especially in Germany, a group of
adherents who fanatically embrace his ideas and worship his
art. His exhibits have gone to all of the larger cities, includ-
ing Vienna, Prague, and Paris. He has made proselytes
everywhere. Moreover, in later years — before the war —
economic success has attended artistic success. In the Linde

590 SCANDINAVIAN ART

History. Mural Painting in the University of Christiania, by Edvard

Munch

Collection at Liibeck, one of the most exclusive collections
of modern art in Germany, hang works by him, paintings,
etchings, wood-engravings in great number and side by side
with the paintings of Manet, Whistler, Degas, and Bocklin,
and in the same rooms with the largest representation of
Rodin outside of France.

Munch experienced a prolific period upon settling down
in the little town of Kragero on the shores of Skagerak; not
without reason this period might be counted the high-water
mark in his entire production. Here he executed vigorous
and juicy landscapes, and here he continued his series of
life-sized standing portraits of men. Here, finally, he con-
ceived the ideas for his University decorations and painted
his tentative studies for them. In these mural pictures orna-
menting the great auditorium at the University of Christiania
he symbolizes with unexampled coloristic power the arts
and natural sciences in the plainest and most unassuming
manner by means of simple scenes from Norwegian life and
nature.

Only the main outlines of Munch's production as a painter
have been drawn here. As a graphic artist, too, he has turned
out a mass of things. He has drawn portraits in black and
white of a large number of artists and literary men, men
like Malarme, Strindberg, Gunnar Heiberg, Helge Rode,
Sigbjorn Obstfelder, Tor Hedberg, Jens Thiis, and others.
Further, there are erotic themes and subjects from child life
and animal life in the glorious and abundant output of litho-

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 591

graphs, wood-engravings, and etchings that have come from
his hand.

Edvard Munch is undoubtedly the most pictorially gifted
of all of the painters that have seen the light of day in Nor-
way. Moreover, in his art there has appeared more and
more an individual, self-evolved personality, a personality
that enfolds, besides the brilliantly endowed painter, also
something of the brooding thinker and much of the poet.
His art is a disclosure of temperament, which carries the
effect of a philosophy of life.

IX
THE PRESENT GENERATION OF PAINTERS

THE youths who grew up in the pettifogging atmosphere
of the eighties were neither robust nor pugnacious. In
many respects they were a disillusioned generation of
young doubters and dreamers. Upon the worship of brutal
reality that distinguished the eighties there followed a reac-
tion toward dreaming and neo-romanticism that was wholly
consistent and necessary. This reaction, which for that mat-
ter was only the reflection of a general European movement
away from naturalism and the illusions of actuality, was
largely determined among us by influences emanating from
Denmark. Through the mediation of the Danes our young
artists were led to Italy and to the old masters of the gal-
leries. From these sources they derived their soft, warm,
velvet tone; there they whetted their sense of line and of
composition. In view of the transitory character of the
tendency in our country, it could not fail to have a beneficial
effect upon our art life. It brought results in culture, in
knowledge, and in aptitude of which there was real need.
Our neo-naturalistic art was in process of being barbarized;
foreign culture was a positive necessity. Fortunately, how-
ever, for our subsequent development, this Danish-Italian
spirit, which in the long run inevitably must have remained
strange and exotic to us, did not acquire a lasting hold upon
our painters. When their eyes were opened to really modern
French art and its abounding color values, the best among
them promptly turned to the right about and the others soon
followed.

In this movement, meanwhile, there are two personalities

592

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

593

Mari Clasen, by Halfdan Egedius. Privately owned
in Christiania

that take a place apart — Egedius and Sohlberg, the first
because he died too early to share in the general retreat to
impressionism, the other because his nature and his endow-
ments lean altogether in the opposite direction and because
on the whole he has never followed the stream.

Halfdan Egedius, who was born in 1877, was something
of the child prodigy. At a very early age, in his first work,
he gave evidence of promise; but just as promise was giving
way to assurance of the reality and power of his gifts, and
to a well-founded expectation of decisive results, death car-
ried him off before he had completed his twenty-second
year. Egedius sounded his prelude upon the finest chords in
Werenskiold's art, upon the illustrations to the Tales and

594

SCANDINAVIAN ART

upon the Telemarken idylls with their horses, and young
boys, and girls in oscillating belled skirts. In concert with
these themes he created through increasing independence and
character a series of pictures from Telemarken and Vaage,
in which the delicate notes of summer night vibrate and which
are often so simple and charming in their poetic content that
they recall the open-hearted refrains of popular ballads.
His Midsummer Landscape in the National Gallery, with
the morel-tree, the white horse, and the boy in a red jacket
is just such a harmonious and fervent piece of work.

That Egedius toward the close of his brief life as an artist
had gone far in developing his manner from the idyllic to the
monumental is evidenced, for example, by his portrait of
Mari Clasen. This young farmer's wife from Kviteseid in
Telemarken has a style and poise like de Tornabuoni of
Florence in Ghirlandajo's frescoes in the Santa Maria

Fiddle and Dance, by Halfdan Egedius. In the National Gallery

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 595

Landscape, by Halfdan Egedius. In the National Gallery

Novella ! And for his illustrations to Snorre the youthful
painter took up constructively the thread of Werenskiold's
and Munthe's conventional drawing and carried the prob-
lems of composition farther toward solution in fixed forms
than any other Norwegian artist before him.

Harald Sohlberg, who was born in Christiania in 1869, as
artist and as man is a peculiarly brusque and isolated figure in
our annals. He made his debut together with Egedius in
1894, and already at that time struck the chords upon which
he has played imperturbably ever since. His art is an ex-
tremely individual combination of conventional and natural-
istic qualities. His point of departure is fidelity to nature, a
primitive and persistent cultivation of detail after the manner
of the draughtsman. In thus striving to attain the utmost
in one direction, in draughtsmanship, he necessarily suffers
a curtailment, a species of indigence in the other direction
Sohlberg's art abandons sedulously and purposely the beaten
paths of modern ideas of coloring, he renounces the illusive
properties of pigments, he renounces stroke and atmospheric
effect. In compensation he gains a glow as of enamels and
a depth of precious stones by means of his thin, smoothly-

596

SCANDINAVIAN ART

laid color, inimitably his own. There is a magical force of
light in the blue-green vault of the heavens in his Summer
Night, with its deserted gala table for two, its flowers and
open veranda door. Sohlberg's principal work, however, is
the picture of Rondane, or as he calls it himself, A Winter
Night in the Mountains. Beyond question it is one of the
most monumental canvases in the entire range of Norwegian
art, although it is painted with an extremely minute execution
that in fact defies all modern notions of technique. One has
no longer the impression of painting, but rather of a new
combination of the arts — of melodious architecture or of
frozen poetry. And still it is just the color effect that is con-
clusive; this tone overwhelms the visual nerves with almost
painful intensity. Strictly speaking, the picture has but one
tint, blue. Yet with cold and untiring passion this one pig-
ment is worked up into the most dazzling blue, sharp as
ice-needles, verging on empty white, and on the other side
shaded down into deep green opaque notes that border on
absolute darkness. It is a coloring quite subversive of all our
preconceived ideas of oil painting — a coloring that has little
of the lusciousness and glow of oil painting, but has rather
the delicate, frangible hardness and brilliance of enamel.

Roros in Winter, by Harald Sohlberg. In the National Gallery

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 597

Winter in the Mountains Rondane, by Harald Sohlberg. In the
National Gallery

Harald Sohlberg is an isolated phenomenon in our art.
He is unlike everybody else and subscribes to the tenets of
no school. It would be difficult, however, to find a more
absolute contrast to him than are the two painters of his own
generation who have become to a marked degree representa-
tive of a studied colorism learned in the schools of Europe —
Thorvald Erichsen and Oluf Wold-Torne. They belong
like him to the new romantic group of the nineties which
studied in Denmark and worshipped Italia. The solid
foundations of their technique were laid in Copenhagen
under Zahrtmann, and there they began to acquire that
artistic culture which they later developed by frequent trips
to Italy and France. Both began with a reaction against the
strident impressionism of the eighties and at first painted in
subdued, cello-like tones, but later they received fresh im-
pulses from modern French art, and their admiration in

598

SCANDINAVIAN ART

particular for Cezanne stimulated and kept alive in them
that sense of color which is after all the essence of their talent.
Thorvald Erichsen, a native of Trondhjem, born in 1868,
has brought into Norwegian art an element of good taste and
elevation which has to some extent been lacking. His Land-
scape from Kviteseid, painted in 1900, with its firm and pow-
erful masses and cubes, is nothing less than epoch-making in
our modern painting, an abrupt transition from a hardly
more than mechanical imitation of nature to a consciously
creative art. The following year he progresses still farther
on the same path in the mellow interior with the harmonious
brown darkness that frames the gush of light and color
through the window, or in the amazing Forest Interior of
1 90 1, a symphony in blues and greens where the light flashes
from the flecks of sunshine like lesser planets in their element
One may search long and studiously among works of modern
art to find a more sovereign example of true painting; and
in fact hardly discover it till he stands before one of

Landscape from Kviteseid, by Thorvald Erichsen. In the National

Gallery

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 599

Interior, by Thorvald Erichsen. In the National
Gallery

Cezanne's most inspired landscapes. Exaggerations and
odious comparisons aside, the truth is that something of what
Cezanne has been for universal art Erichsen has attempted
to be for Norwegian art. He is an artist of the first water,
with a remarkably fine eye for color and an individual,
copious, unfettered mastery of brush-technique. Few or
none of our younger men have contributed more than he
toward raising the level of artistic culture among us. I am
thinking now not of ideas and sentiments, which other paint-
ers with particular gifts and with temperaments of a different
order may have expressed still more intensely; I am thinking
of the concentrated, methodical seeking for the right thing,
no less fruitful for others than for himself, with which he
has cultivated his individual means of expression. Notwith-
standing his unusual intelligence and education, Erichsen has
not published a line. He has wrought only through his
palette. Yet in his own field he has been a model husband-
man of the artistic resources that lie within his domain. His
goal has always been the emancipation of painting from the
"subject," that is, from imitative dependence upon actuality.
It has been his purpose to make composition, color, tone, and
stroke stand out more strongly than the subject, than the

600

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Flower

Piece, by Oluf Wold-Torne.
Privately owned

scene which may
chance to be the
point of departure
and reference for a
given piece of work.
He has never over-
stepped his proper
bounds. He never
became a cubist; nor
surely has he ever
made a stroke of the
brush without keep-
ing his eye on the
object. His work,
nevertheless, repre-
sents a stage in the
development of art toward its final emancipation in cubism.
In the National Gallery, Erichsen's paintings occupy the
greater part of the long wall in the "Young Men's Room."
They adjoin, and with their bright, shimmering, mother-of-
pearl tone harmonize admirably with those of his friend and
closest comrade, the painter of still life and flower pieces,
Oluf Wold-Torne, who was born in 1867 and died untimely

in I9I9-

The two men, Erichsen and Torne, belong together as

regards age and development; in their art, as well, they show
a marked relationship and have followed much the same
paths. Torne, too, during his youth served a Danish ap-
prenticeship at Zahrtmann's school in Copenhagen. Beyond
that, however, he has built upon the foundation laid by the
native leaders, Werenskiold and Munthe. Yet these cir-
cumstances are not sufficient to account for the distinctive
place he holds in Norwegian art, as one of the few who have
gained a following important enough to be named a school.
No one was more eager for knowledge or more enthusiastic
in the worship of good art, past and present, than was Torne.
In his early years he went with the Danes to Italy and there
received ineradicable impressions from Florence, Siena, and

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 601

Decorative Composition, by Oluf Wold-Torne. In the National Gallery

the ancients. Like several others among the painters of the
nineties he began as a sort of pre-Raphaelite. Later, under
French tuition and discipline, he learned to express himself
in more modern terminology; above all, he attained a clearer
and fuller mastery of color. Like Erichsen, he became an
impressionist of the older order, yet with emphatic reminis-
cences of Cezanne and Van Gogh. The charm of Renoir was
more foreign to his somewhat awkward hand; in his tender
heart, nevertheless, he may have given the highest place of
all to that painter of flowers and of the joy of life.

Torne made his debut in 1893; and in 1894 he exhibited
his first mature work, a somewhat pre-Raphaelite portrait
of his wife. On his return to Norway, however, he asso-
ciated himself wholly with the national movement and its
tendencies toward the lyrical cult of nature ; and so he painted,
among other things, the inspired picture of The Young Stal-
lion tossing his whinnied challenge out across the barren
uplands, a canvas which now is in the collection of Rasmus
Meyer at Bergen. During this period he had much in com-
mon with Egedius. Tome's special field, meanwhile, was the
painting of flowers and of interiors. The quietly withdrawn
life of the home, with wife and children, flowers and apples

602 SCANDINAVIAN ART

and all beloved household things finds its exponent in him;
within this limited sphere he gives expression to his dreams
of artistic felicities in a gamut of tender and powerful colors
and in shimmering, pearly gradations. Tome's was no facile
art that rapidly reached its goal ; it has been well said of him
that he wrestled like a very Jacob with his subjects. His
form is heavy, his stroke lacks grace ; in countless layers the
pigments lie spread upon the canvas. Yet he never gives up
the battle; and in his best pictures the hues gleam with a
peculiar volume and compactness which in intimate richness
of shading are, after their own fashion, without parallel in
Norwegian art, celebrated as that art is for its treatment of
color. Tome's endowments were, however, like those of
Munthe and to a certain degree also those of Werenskiold,
twofold. He practised naturalistic painting with a pre-
dominant emphasis on values and, in addition, had a strong
leaning toward ornamental and decorative handling of sur-
face effects. He did not possess Munthe's lush imagination
and gift for fine fabling; but at the bottom of his heart there
lay a deep desire to utter his thoughts freely, to sing his feel-
ings in art forms which should be at once rhythmically dis-
ciplined and more unfettered by the realities of life than the
laborious painting in oils. Tome's decorative production
came to be voluminous, and his gifts proved to be more
unmistakable in this field than in the domain of pure painting.
He has turned out a multitude of designs and drawings for
book illustrations, tapestries, embroideries, and strictly deco-
rative aquarelles in which figures and ornamentation appear
in clustered groupings. Toward the last he was occupied
also with painting on glass and with mural decorations.
While painting in oils was difficult for him, decoration was
easy. He had only to give full play to his pristine fancy and
to rely on his sure sense of balance and his naturally fresh
feeling for color; the compositions poured forth of their own
accord, vigorous, firm and compact, rhythmical and storied,
the product of youthful imagination and confident command
of the resources of style. His decorative art deals with chil-
dren and angels and climbing flowers. The happy religious

MODERN NOWEGIAN ART

603

Sjodal Lake, by Kristen Holbo. In the National Gallery

faith that was the motive power in his life and his art find
ready egress here. In this realm of trustfulness and inno-
cence his childlike mind came into calm reliance and peace.
As a teacher of decorative art and composition at the School
of Arts and Crafts in Christiania, Torne exerted a great and
telling influence on younger men of the guild; and so he is to
be reckoned among the small number of Norwegian artists
who succeeded in forming a school. There was in him much
of the stuff of which a William Morris is made.

His most distinguished pupil and follower is Frojdis
Haavardsholm, a young woman of generous creative talent
and a strong personality, who, in the decorative field, has
become the inheritor of his renown and at the present time
is the leader of the decorative artists in Norway. To the
same group as Torne and Erichsen belongs another pupil of
Zahrtmann, the landscape painter Kristen Holbo, of Vaage,
an unspoiled and imaginative country artist who, in the pres-
entation of forest and mountain scenes from his home
parish, has occasionally done excellent things. Further, Wil-

604

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Three Children's Heads, by Ludvig Karsten. Privately owned

helm Wetlesen, who under Italian influences for a time
tended strongly toward the pre-Raphaelites but who in recent
years has arrived at more native and restrained means of
utterance ; August Jacobsen, who at first took his motifs from
nature in Jaederen, on the west coast of Norway, and later
from winter scenery in the upland interior; and Otto Hennig,
who discovered points of contact with his romantic feeling
for nature in older Norwegian art, in Dahl and Fearnley.
Sigmund Sinding, Otto Sinding's son, has put his best efforts
into pictures of children, of interiors, and of quiet, melan-
choly landscapes; while Hans Odegaard in a gloomy series
of paintings relates personal narratives from the dark, dirty,
forlorn, seamy side of life in the capital. More recently,
through the influence of the younger generation, notably
Deberitz, his art has gained in composition and in richness of
coloring. Severin Grande belongs also to the group which
began similarly with phases of Bohemian life in barren

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

605

Consumptive Woman, by Ludvig Karsten. In the
National Gallery

ateliers; but as time passed, he has taken on a more modern
yet less individual manner. The same judgment applies to
Otto Johansen, an impulsive character of marked receptivity,
who after sundry divagations has cast anchor in the extremes
of French expressionism.

Far above these men of middling gifts rises an artist of
great pictorial talent, Ludvig Karsten, born in 1876, who is
justly regarded as Munch's successor, as the outstanding
personality in modern Norwegian painting. Karsten's in-
debtedness to Munch has by no means spoiled his individ-

606

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Knut Hamsun, by Henrik Lund. Privately owned

uality. His originality is strong and undeniable, and he has
more formal training than most of his contemporaries; the
time of study he spent in Munich resulted in a solid founda-
tion of technical ability which most of the younger artists
may well envy him. A picture such as that of the Three
Children's Heads, owned by Johan Anker, is painted with a
living sense of reality and a sweeping virtuosity which no
other Norwegian artist can equal. And when in the National
Gallery we stand before Karsten's big picture of the Con-

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

607

Portrait of the Author Hans Jasger, by Henrik Lund. Privately
owned

sumptive Old Woman, who appears so simple and genuine in
her homespun dress, it is possible that reminiscences of cer-
tain works by Munch which have suggested the composition
may occur to us, but coloristically the picture holds its own in
defiance of Munch. Indeed it is possible that Karsten's color-
istic gift is more vigorous and robust than that of Munch ; but
Munch's mastery does not depend on color alone — it is a
part of his own commanding personality.

Side by side with Karsten stands Henrik Lund as the most
prolific and interesting talent of the neo-impressionistic camp.
The influence of Munch in his earlier years was fructified by

608

SCANDINAVIAN ART

The Author Gunnar Heiberg and Others in a Garden, by Henrik Lund.
Privately Owned in Bergen

his admiration for Krohg's art of the eighties and by the
impetus received from Manet. Henrik Lund is first and
foremost a portrait painter. The keynote of his art is his
shrewd psychological insight and his gift for salient charac-
terization. None can equal him in catching a fleeting expres-
sion and transferring it to canvas — a glance, a half smile, a
feature that reveals and yet conceals personality. He handles
the brush with dexterous and virile strength which makes him
one of the few real virtuosos of Norwegian painting. His
coloring, which formerly had a soft and gracious cast with a
prevalence of powdered grey, has in recent years developed
into bold and striking effects.

To the same circle of modern colorists belongs Arne Kavli,
who was born in 1878. He began as a painter of Jaederen
in a heavy dark coloring with austere and restrained draw-
ing— a typical neo-romanticist with decided leanings to the

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

*09

In the Attic, by Bernhard Folkestad. In the National Gallery

gallery. Later he has turned to the right about and is now the
very opposite of his former self. He has developed into a
graceful and subtle impressionist of a decidedly modern type
with a palette that is the last word in brightness and airiness.
In addition to being a painter of taste, Kavli is also a talented
caricaturist with a caustic wit.

Torstein Torsteinson, born in 1876, began in the nineties
with a style learned in the school of the famous painter of
nuances, Whistler. Later, under the influence partly of
Munch and partly of modern French art, he has found the
form best suited to him in a light, flowing color, combined
with powerful draughtsmanship, and revealing in his best
pictures a considerable amount of character as well as a
trained artistic taste.

Closely related to the foregoing painters, we have Bern-
hard Folkestad, born in 1879. He is a temperamental artist
with a gift for decorative effect who, in a bright and vivid
coloring, paints preferably still life, flowers, fruit, or scenes
from the chicken-yard, whose pied inhabitants he has ob-
served closely. Among his most important works is a monu-

610

SCANDINAVIAN ART

HHHHBHnHi

Two Young Girls, by Soren Onsagei'. In the National Gallery

mental still life of vegetables in which a red and a green
cabbage are prominent. This painting, which was his debut,
was immediately bought by the National Gallery. As an
interpreter of the nature of the Westland, Nicolai Astrup,
born in 1880 in Jolster, in western Norway, has found a spe-
cial field well suited to his imaginative nature lyricism. He
may well be said to have broken new ground for Norwegian
landscape painting. A. C. Svarstad, born in 1869, has also
found a special field, though a very different one, in the city
picture. In pale grey or slightly archaistically colored paint-
ings from the South and from the North he has combined
coloristic subtlety with a certain amount of involuntary
naivite. Svarstad has also painted psychologically interesting
portraits, especially of women. Among the painters of this
younger generation should also be mentioned Soren Onsager,

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

611

Gudrun, by Henrik Sorensen. Privately owned in Gothenburg

whose favorite subject is the nude human body. With ex-
quisite delicacy of feeling he paints especially very young
girls with a peculiar subdued, restrained coloring which
shows the impress of his Danish-French training under
Zahrtmann and Gaugin.

The youngest Norwegian artists belong to the so-called
expressionistic cult, and most of them have after their school-
ing at home continued their study in Paris, generally in the
famous atelier of Matisse. There some of them have

612

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Fishermen in the Mediterranean, by Axel Revold. Privately owned

acquired a well-grounded and broad artistic culture and a
sense of composition and drawing, neither of which are very
common here at home. This fact has undoubtedly attracted
less attention than it should, inasmuch as the public has chiefly
noted the unusual palette affected by the group, combined of
clear, strong pigments in decorative juxtaposition. In 19 14,
in the secessionist exhibition known as De fjorten at the Cen-
tennial Exposition at Christiania, these young painters made
an impressive showing. There is no doubt that the group
contains several unusual and original talents with a very
creditable production behind them. Among them are Henrik
Sorensen, Jean Heiberg, Per Deberitz, Rudolf Thygesen,
and Axel Revold. My personal belief is that it is in this
direction we must look in the future for the most valuable
contributions to Norwegian pictorial art.

SCULPTURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

THE history of Norwegian sculpture in the nineteenth
century is not a very eventful or brilliant saga. It is a
history in which there are no high seas and no dashing
breakers ; it deals with a continuous, quiet struggle in which
defeats are many and victories few. It recounts how a small
number of isolated men fought to secure the rights of nativity,
even beneath the low skies of Norway, for an art that had its
origin in remote, sunny lands, and which more than any other
art requires sunshine, wealth, harmonious conditions — a
superabundance of the joy of life and of sensuous ease. Pov-
erty, winter weather, and pietism, however, are stubborn
opponents. Nor can it be denied, unfortunately, that among
the protagonists of the plastic arts in Norway there were not
many who were endowed with that richness of talent which
conquers all opposition and soon or late builds enduring
reputations.

Industry and conscientiousness, fidelity toward their ex-
alted summons, a desire for learning, a love for their great
exemplars, and a resigned courage in the arduous battle of
life — these are the virtues, nevertheless, which have dis-
tinguished the Norwegian sculptors, almost without excep-
tion. Some among them, moreover, possessed native gifts
which, had they not been repressed by force of circumstances,
would have brought about a more considerable and a more
fruitful production than that which now remains to us. Yet
there is to be found in this small group, in the personality of
Middelthun, an individual talent of the purest ray, refined
through culture into added serenity. The cultural climate of

613

614 SCANDINAVIAN ART

his own land, however, was too harsh for his delicate and
soulful nature, and his talent never reached its full measure
of vigor and luxuriance.

Another among them, Sinding, an active and fearless
spirit, has bravely attacked the most difficult problems and in
supple sympathy with contemporaneous French sculpture has
executed a series of works which have borne the master's
fame far beyond the confines of his native country. His
artistic individuality, nevertheless, is not of those that are
bound to their own soil; impatient over all the tribulations
which a Norwegian sculptor must contend with, he has chosen
Denmark as his second home.

The only one of the number who has given substance to an
art that with unfailing power reflects a deep and vehemently
marked personality still stands beneath an ascendent star.
And his achievements are already numerous enough and
weighty enough to give an impression of the profound
philosophy of life expressed through his art. This man is
Vigeland. For the rest we meet but few whose endowments
have attained such a height or developed so distinctive a qual-
ity that they deserve to be named unusual. Most of them
bear the scars of the overpowering conditions under which
they have labored. At an earlier or later period their artistic
strength has been crippled.

It was not merely that with the larger number the natural
craving for encouragement and for favoring fortune was
altogether too infrequently satisfied. Even that mutual
sympathy of artist for artist, which from time to time has
served to unite our painters and to hearten them in seasons
of trial, is not discoverable among the scattered and isolated
figures in the small company of our embattled sculptors.
The battle they have waged has been, in almost every single
case, not only a depressing battle on behalf of art, but too
often also a bitter struggle for bread. Hardly one of them
has escaped the occasional lack of the bare necessaries of
existence.

On the other hand, it is just their calm courage and their
fidelity to a once accepted calling that lend significance to

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 615

their warfare and cast a gleam of greatness over even the
lowliest of that little band who ventured upon the field of
sculpture among a people which had so few of the requisite
qualifications to understand and to feel the need of their art.
In the light of these facts alien and compatriot alike must
view their life and their work.

As a decorative adjunct to architecture and to the more
dignified of the handicrafts plastic art has an ancient footing
in Norway. The abundant examples of carving from
our Romanesque timber churches in various parts of the
land bear sufficient witness to the early development of
plastic gifts among the people. Furthermore, amid the
large quantity of foreign things adorning the medieval
Norwegian stone churches, one can find a considerable
number of sculptures, particularly an array of portrait-like
heads and masks in the cathedral at Trondhjem, which
may be assumed to be the accomplishment of native
craftsmen.

On the submergence of our political independence, how-
ever, the national traditions were broken also in this sphere,
and art life, no less than culture in its other phases, sank
back during subsequent centuries into a wretched state. Yet
the old prepossession and the old talent for artistic wood-
carving continued to be transplanted among the rural popula-
tion in several localities, and notably during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries reached a respectable height. It
must be ascribed solely to the neglected condition in which
Norway found herself under Danish rule that the generous
and prevalent gift for wood-carving among the country folk
failed to assume nobler shapes in sculpture of an essentially
Norwegian character.

The only one of the rustic wood-carvers of Norway who
managed to lift himself to the status of a really trained artist,
an artist of no mean rank, was Magnus Berg, who later
became a painter and a carver. His technically finished work
in ivory is rated with the best performances of the baroque
age. Yet the nation was robbed of his vigorous resources,
too, since he placed them at the service of the king of Den-

616 SCANDINAVIAN ART

mark, spent the greater part of his days in Copenhagen, and
died there in 1739.

Of rustic birth, like Magnus Berg, was also Hans Michel-
sen, the first Norwegian sculptor in the period following
upon the separation from Denmark, and for a long time the
only one. Michelsen was born in 1789 in the neighborhood
of Trondhjem, where he lived first as a farmer and later as a
soldier until, at the age of twenty-six, following urgent advice,
he journeyed to Stockholm in order to employ his unusual
talent for wood-carving in efforts to become a sculptor. It is
certain that Michelsen's gifts aroused the highest public ex-
pectations. Perhaps these expectations took shape in the
anticipatory dream that he might at some future time grow
to be an artist whose reputation would throw a reflected
splendor over his culturally indigent native land, a glory like
that which Sergei had brought to Sweden and Thorvaldsen
to Denmark. Evidence of such a hope appears in the govern-
ment support which Michelsen received, even during his
apprenticeship in Stockholm, and which fell to his lot for a
series of years while he sought farther training in Thor-
valdsen's workshop in Rome. Yet when Michelsen returned
home, after a decade of study abroad, he was presently made
to feel keenly to what a degree it was the vanity of the nation
and not its love of art that had held up his hands through this
long period of preparation. As matters stood at the time,
economic exigencies and intellectual limitations combined to
render sculpture superfluous in our country. The prospect
of finding employment in the decoration of the palace at
Christiania, which was then being erected, had lured Michel-
sen to Norway from Rome. Even the very building opera-
tions, however, came to a standstill for seven years by reason
of the lack of funds; the mere thought of adorning the edi-
fice was necessarily still more remote. Some attempts were
made to find a place for the unemployed sculptor as a teacher
at the School of Design in Christiania, but even here there
was no need for his services. No recourse appeared open
to him.

Consequently, in 1828, he found his way back to Stock-

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 617

holm, where he had spent several happy years as an appren-
tice and where in former days, at all events, he had enjoyed
the patronage of men of substance. On his arrival, as
misfortune would have it, he learned that his old benefactor
Peder Anker, secretary of state, was dead and that he was
himself quite forgotten. In order to gain his daily bread he
was compelled to work as a marble-cutter in the ateliers of
Swedish sculptors. His spare hours he devoted to carrying
out his own designs. It was not until 1833 that he was able
to summon his energies for the outstanding achievement of
his life. In Rome he had seen Thorvaldsen's figures of the
apostles take form, and they must evidently have left a deep
impression upon him. Still they cannot have fully satisfied
his ideals, since he felt impelled to try his luck with the same
subjects.

The figures of the Apostles, executed for the cathedral at
Trondhjem, are characterized throughout by the contem-
porary tendency toward the antique and toward abstract
idealism, and show no evidence whatever of an effort to adapt
the style of the statues to that of their architectural back-
ground. They are a series of normal figures, most properly
to be described as drapery figures, in which the artist by
means of unnecessarily abundant folds in the antique garb
has managed to attain a certain pompous and dignified effect.
Yet not one of them carries the stamp of personal feeling or
expresses any positive individuality.

The apostles, nevertheless, found general approval in
Norway as well as in Stockholm, and they even opened for
their creator the doors of the Swedish Academy of Art.
Despite this success Michelsen was unable to gain a perma-
nent position in Stockholm. After several years of the most
miserable existence, he came to the conviction, in 1841, that
there was no other egress from his unhappy situation than to
give up all notions of sustaining himself by his art, and ac-
cordingly he returned to his native heath and resumed his
labor in the fields and his wood-carving.

Some years later the poet Johan Sebastian Welhaven set
on foot a subscription for the purpose of placing a commis-

618 SCANDINAVIAN ART

sion with the aging artist. Once more Hans Michelsen took
up his chisel, and finished a bust of Holberg, which is to be
seen in the library of the University of Christiania. In 1850
he was entrusted with the execution of four Statues of Old
Norse Kings, designed for Oscarshal. These works, how-
ever, demonstrate all too plainly that only pitiful remnants
were left of the talent upon which Thorvaldsen had passed
so favorable a verdict thirty years before. Finally, in 1859,
provision was made to free the septuagenarian artist from
the most carking financial cares by proposing on his behalf
a small government pension. Before the grant could be
arranged, however, Hans Michelsen died.

It was not until 1850, when King Oscar I ordered the
building and the adornment of his little summer palace,
Oscarshal, that the artists of Norway received their first
official commission. On this occasion we meet a new sculptor,
Christopher Borch, who was charged with the composition of
a brace of reliefs upon motives from Fridthjof's Saga and a
series of decorative heads intended to represent personalities
from medieval Norway. Borch was born in Drammen in
1 8 17. Equipped with experience in carpentry and wood-
carving he had for a time sought higher training at the
Academy of Art in Copenhagen, until eventually he decided
to become a sculp^ir and entered Bissen's atelier.

While Michelsen reflected in his art the classicism of
Thorvaldsen, Borch represented that national romanticism
which in subsequent years colored intellectual life with fresh
idealism. The best feature in his art is just the pure-hearted
and simple enthusiasm with which he seized upon the patriotic
and religious ideals of the period. Only too often, neverthe-
less, his works lost their pristine energy and ardent feeling
as they took shape beneath his hand. He was most success-
ful in two statues with Biblical themes, The Daughter of
Jephthah, and David and Shulamite. Yet none of his pro-
ductions possesses personality and vigor of form. There is
a smooth and patent commonness about everything that he
has done.

Borch's circumstances and his artistic career, it might well

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 619

be said, fell in pleasant places as compared with the lives and
fortunes of two contemporary sculptors, Hans Hansen and
Hans Budal. Hansen, after some years of study in Copen-
hagen and a longer sojourn in Rome, passed his latter days
in Christiania, where, finding practically no means of liveli-
hood, he secluded himself in shyness and poverty, and died
at the early age of thirty-seven. Budal, like most of the
other Norwegian sculptors, was of rustic origin and to begin
with a wood-carver. From Jerichau's atelier in Copenhagen
he proceeded in 1861 to Rome, and there he remained ten
years, continuously struggling with the most abject want.
At the Scandinavian Exposition in Stockholm in 1866 he
exhibited a Christ Upon the Cross and two genre figures,
which in all their simplicity gave telling evidence of his
artistic abilities. His bust of Karl XV is in the National
Gallery. The last years of his life he spent at home, poor
and forgotten. He died in 1879.

Nor did the two succeeding artists, Glosimodt and Flad-
ager, both country boys and wood-carvers, ever manage to
reach the sunny side. Glosimodt, a pupil of the Academy
of Art in Copenhagen, passed the better part of his time
in the Danish capital. Little by little he gave over his activ-
ities as a sculptor in favor of his increasing capacity for
beautiful carving in ivory and box-wood. The busts of Tide-
mand and Gude in the National Gallery are by Glosimodt.
A man of more adaptable talent was Fladager, who likewise
received his artistic schooling in Copenhagen, and later in
Rome. Among his works may be mentioned, in addition to
certain busts, the Baptismal Angel in Our Saviour's Church
in Christiania, and his David, strongly touched by the influ-
ence of Thorvaldsen and yet rather fine, which now is in the
National Gallery.

In the person of Middelthun we meet at last a sculptor of
the purest talent, a talent with which are associated both
intelligence and nobility of soul. Though many causes com-
bined to narrow the range of his art, it still comprises works
that belong with the most magnificent things produced in
Norway. Julius Middelthun was born at Kongsberg in

620 SCANDINAVIAN ART

1820 as the son of a coin engraver. The younger man prac-
tised the trade of goldsmith until he was enabled to enter
Bissen's atelier in Copenhagen. His stay in the Danish city
continued through an entire decade. Under the guidance
of Bissen and the inspiration of the exalted idealism in the
art of Thorvaldsen he grew to be what he was in very deed:
an artist in whose endeavors the most honest observation
of reality is united with a distinguished and clarified percep-
tion of beauty. Above all else he cultivated and held in
honor a thoroughly elaborated form.

Upon the Copenhagen period there followed for Mid-
delthun an extremely significant sojourn of eight years in
Rome, during which he acquired a deep and intense under-
standing of the spirit and the eloquent forms of antiquity.
Yet from this time, as from the time he studied in
Copenhagen, we have very few examples of his power. An
insatiable receptivity and an exaggerated humility in the
presence of great models appear to have overmastered him
and to have restricted his productiveness. After his return
to Norway Middelthun became somewhat more prolific; still
he never became really fluent in expression. His sedulously
reflective sense of form prevented him from ever being
wholly satisfied with his results. It seemed as if a profound
respect for his ar,t had conspired with a natural timorous-
ness to deter him from laying his boaster aside and facing
courageously a finished piece of work.

Middelthun' s art leaves the collective impression that he
was first and foremost a splendid portraitist. His synthetical
imagination was much less developed than his psychological
instinct and his penetrating sense of form — which are the
qualities best fitted for the demands of portraiture. Never-
theless, it was not in the first instance his feeling for the
outwardly characteristic that made him a prominent artist
in this field. Almost all of his portraits are the fruit of a
certain intuitive grasp of the personality of the subject. To
cause the soul to gleam through the features of a face was
his steadfast purpose.

Thoroughly permeated with such an admiring intent is

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 621

Bust of the Poet Welhaven, by Julius

Middelthun. In the Students' Union,

Christiania

Middelthun' s soulful bronze bust of Halfdan Kjerulf in
the pretty little square in Christiania that bears the com-
poser's name. Before producing this work Middelthun
executed, about i860, the two marble busts of Wergeland
and Welhaven that now have a place in the assembly room
of the Students' Union in Christiania. In the bust of Werge-
land Middelthun has tried to seize the ecstatic enthusiasm,
the high-spirited confidence of Wergeland's nature. He has
succeeded only in part. Quite lacking in the bust are that
power and that force one expects to find in the author of The
Creation, Man, and the Messiah. In the bust of Welhaven,
on the other hand, Middelthun has penetrated to the very

622 SCANDINAVIAN ART

heart of personality. It is evident that the artist has felt an
intimate spiritual kinship with certain phases of Welhaven's
creative, poetic genius. His representation reveals a soul
freed from earthly dross. Yet on those features there still
remain palpitating traces of the conflicts that have raged
within. The attitude is firm, severe; the eye steady, com-
pelling; the brow smooth, commanding. That calm clarity
of reason which Welhaven strove throughout life to attain is
now visible in his countenance. Only about the full and
broadly modelled lips there still remain the quivering evi-
dences of a vehement spirit, the signs of an irascible love of
battle, the tokens of a venomous wit. Yet out of the depths
of his being shines the light of his eyes, manly and quiet,
proud and gentle, as of one who discerns beyond the pro-
foundest sadness the precious meanings of life.

The last large task that Middelthun had to fulfill was the
execution of a monument to Professor Anton Martin
Schweigaard on the University grounds. It was unveiled in
1883. In reality Middelthun's talent was perhaps of too
intimate a character to adapt itself readily to monumental
sculpture. For him the bust was a much more suitable vehicle
of portraiture than the monumental statue. Nevertheless,
even if the Schweigaard statue is not quite happy, it is still
free from the common, bombastic monumental effect; it is
restrained and beautifully conceived. More than that, the
real value of the statue is in the head itself, in the open, trust-
worthy countenance with its clean-cut features, its warm,
clear glance, and its wise half-smile. Among Middelthun's
other works mention should be made of the brilliant bust of
Wessel* in the National Gallery and the excellent marble
bust of the Eidsvold man,t Jacob Aall, in the same place.
Middelthun died at Christiania in 1886, sixty-six years of
age. Neither during his life nor after his death has his talent
been estimated at its intrinsic value.

*Johan Herman Wessel, a satirical poet, born in Norway but resident in
Copenhagen, who died in 1785. His best known work is the witty comedy,
Love Sans Stockings.

fA member of the contituent assembly in Eidsvold at the time when Norway
severed her political connection with Denmark in 1814.

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 623

Of an artistic nature wholly different from that of Middel-
thun was Brynjulf Bergslien, his junior by ten years. In
Bergslien's native endowments the governing characteristic
was a jaunty and festive breadth of mind. His capacity for
work was fluent and vigorous, his form full and supple, and
at times bold. It is not to be denied, however, that the mul-
tifarious and casual production to order, which his active and
easy nature led him into, came in the course of time to exert
a destructive influence upon his artistic discrimination, and
sank his later performances down to a level of smooth in-
sipidity where the distance between the good and the bad is
extremely short. None the less, in the palmy days of his
talent Bergslien gave to Christiania the best, the most festive,
the most effective monumental statue we possess.

Brynjulf Bergslien was born in Voss in 1830, and belongs
to a country family with highly developed artistic leanings.
Bergslien became a pupil of Bissen in Copenhagen, and in
that capacity he was entrusted with the task of rendering
Thorvaldsen's Jason and his Hope in marble for the Thor-
valdsen Museum. Bergslien remained in Copenhagen eight
years, and, like all of the older Norwegian sculptors, he
owed much to the tuition of Danish masters. After a subse-
quent stay in Rome he returned to Norway, where he lived
thenceforth. It was in the design for an equestrian monu-
ment to Carl Johan in 1868 that Bergslien's talent first
reached complete maturity; on this occasion he carried off the
prize in a competition with a Norwegian, a Swedish, and a
French sculptor. The French marshal, chosen king, is pre-
sented in the act of acknowledging the plaudits of his people,
bearing himself royally upon a mettlesome, caracoling
charger. The silhouette of the monument serves effectually
its adorning purpose in its elevated position on the terrace of
the spacious palace yard; the horse particularly is ener-
getically modelled, and with feeling for decorative effect.

Two years after this successful work Bergslien was com-
missioned to execute the statue of Henrik Wergeland for the
Students' Park in Christiania. In this case, however, his tal-
ents failed him to an almost astounding degree. Here, where

624 SCANDINAVIAN ART

the problem was not only that of attaining an external deco-
rative quality but of giving a characteristic representation of
the personality of a man of genius, Bergslien disclosed the
limitations of his art. It is very difficult to find in this
theatrical figure the least trace of Wergeland's proud and
ardently poetic soul.

It was unfortunate, therefore, that it did not fall to
Bergslien's lot to create the statue which more than any other
was suited to his gifts and for which he had made an excellent
model, now in the National Gallery — the monument to the
founder of the city of Christiania, Christian IV. There is
authority and magnificent poise about this royal father of his
country who points out with his riding whip the future loca-
tion of the capital city, and there is humor in the characteriza-
tion of his corpulent figure. Still Bergslien's design, which
had breadth and freshness of form, was rejected as too
realistic, in favor of one far less significant. Bergslien has
produced, in addition, a number of decorative pieces, and in
the course of years a quantity of busts to order, of which
those of the singing master Behrens and of Sven Foyn proba^
bly are the best.

Bergslien's successful competitor in the design for the
statue of Christian IV was Carl Jacobsen, who, like the
earlier Norwegian sculptors, received his artistic training in
Denmark. Jacob'sen turned out to be an upright artist, who
always gave industriously and conscientiously what there
was in him to give. As a portrait sculptor he became very
popular, but it is especially the two public monuments he
produced which must be taken as the measure of his powers.
The bust of Wessel, erected in heroic proportions in front
of the building of the Norwegian Society in Christiania, is
the least considerable of them, and is inferior to Middelthun's
statue of Wessel. More notable is his statue of Christian IV
on the market-place in Christiania; it was unveiled in 1880.
This is a carefully executed, but not particularly original,
historical costume-figure; a comparison will hardly demon-
strate its superiority to Bergslien's model.

In all of the artists who have been mentioned above there

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 625

a re traces, in a greater or lesser number of their works, of the
lingering echoes of Danish classicism, an influence to be
expected since they had all spent their apprentice years in
Danish ateliers. Not until the seventies did a new company
of artists appear who had received their first schooling on
their native soil, and whose understanding of their function
had little or nothing in common with the classical or romantic
idealism of the older generation. The realistic and natural-
istic view of art which for a long time had been manifesting
itself in Europe, and more especially in France, now began
to win a foothold in Norway as well. After a fiery struggle
in the eighties between the champions of the older and the
newer conceptions, the men of the younger generation, with
their realistic vision, become the true representatives of our
national art life. Though the cleavage between the old and
the new is less noticeable in sculpture than in painting, a
change is clearly discernible; and from this time forth it is
no longer in the direction of the plastic traditions of Den-
mark, but in the direction of modern German and, still more,
modern French sculpture that the coming artists turn their
eyes.

Stephan Sinding, Mathias Skeibrok, and Soren Lexow-
Hansen all began as pupils of Middelthun; later, however,
each of them followed a path of his own, and none of them
came to adhere very closely to the tendencies of their first
master.

Stephan Sinding, who was born at Roros in 1846, belongs
to an artistically gifted family. After a period of study
under Wolf in Berlin, and after having shown a statue at the
Universal Exposition in Paris in 1878, Sinding attacked in
Rome the great group which made him famous : A Barbarian
Woman Carrying Her Son Off the Battlefield, now in the
Glyptothek at Copenhagen and in the National Gallery at
Christiania. It is a gruesome, sanguinary mood from the
time of the migration of the peoples that the artist has sought
to express in this violently agitated group, the old Hunnish
woman and the son whom she is dragging away from the field
of battle. While the detailed treatment of form does not

626

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Barbarian Woman Carrying Her Son off the Battle-
field, by Stephan Sinding. In the National Gallery

measure up to the level of the energetic linear construction
of the composition, the Barbarian Group is nevertheless an
extremely effective piece of work on the part of a man of
notable plastic talent. The Barbarian Woman is really

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 627

Sinding's masterpiece. Never since has his production at-
tained such a height.

As early as the first years of the eighties Sinding estab-
lished himself in Copenhagen, where he found an ardent
admirer and a generous Moecenas, who gave him several
large commissions. His works are therefore in the main to
be looked for in the Glyptothek at Copenhagen, a collection
assembled and sustained by the Danish brewer, Carl Jacob-
sen. After having composed a rather extensive decorative
frieze for the Glyptothek, Sinding summoned his forces about
a series of groups which, like the Barbarian Woman, draw
their themes from the greatest and most elemental emotions.
The mother burying her son, the man embracing a woman,
the mother nursing her child, the widow grieving at her hus-
band's death — these are the subjects of The Barbarian
Group, Two Human Beings, The Captive Mother, and A
Woman Beside Her Husband's Body. An artist who sets
himself tasks so exacting as these wants neither courage nor
high confidence in his own powers. Motives the most deserv-
ing of artistic consecration — love and death — Sinding has
made the object of his supreme endeavors. One cannot
escape the impression, however, that he has approached his
problems with somewhat conspicuous temerity. There is no
suggestion that he has had any fear for the results. Not-
withstanding all that is effective and striking in the subjects,
or in the composition of these groups, they are not among
the works of art that seize our deepest feelings. Perhaps it
is because the purpose is too manifest, and also because the
treatment of the form is as a rule too fugitive, either alto-
gether too bulging or altogether too smooth, seldom pene-
trating and sharp.

Best in linear power, yet noticeably affected, is The Cap-
tive Mother, a young and shapely woman, who with hands
bound at her back is kneeling on the ground and offering her
breasts to the hungry lips of her child. The theme is old and
well known from the art of Rubens. Two Human Beings
presents a nude man and a nude woman meeting in embraces
and kisses. At the time when Two Human Beings appeared

628 SCANDINAVIAN ART

there was to be found in Norwegian painting but one picture
with an erotic subject, and that one picture was Tidemand's
Courtship. At that time there was to be found in Norwegian
sculpture but one nude female figure, and that one was
Borch's Shulamite. These two facts are patent evidence
that Sinding's Two Human Beings represented a daring
achievement; and it will always be to Sinding's greatest
artistic credit that he had the impulse and the will to give an
exposition of love which hid behind no pretext, which sought
justification in no mythological or paradisaical title.

Two Human Beings, on its first appearance, was received
with varying emotions. Even those who originally felt ad-
miration for the daring idea embodied in the group must now,
on seeing it after the lapse of years cast in bronze in the
National Gallery, recognize its obvious weaknesses. It is
an embrace which is intended to be seen and marvelled at as
the plastic solution of a new and difficult problem, a solution
that seems to be the result of painstaking deliberation, a solu-
tion in which the first fine rapture of the artist appears to have
cooled considerably during the process of execution. Besides,
the group is less vigorous on its formal side than the earlier
groups. From the point of view of composition the stooping
attitude has a labored and rather clumsy effect, the propor-
tions of the figures, are doubtful, and the treatment of sur-
faces has neither sharpness nor marked character.

The decrease in energy of form is unfortunately still more
noticeable in later works by Sinding. The portrait statues of
Bjornson and Ibsen which have been placed before the
National Theatre bear only too unmistakable witness of the
falling off in his art, and they should in kindness be mentioned
with the utmost brevity. It is difficult to understand how the
creator of The Barbarian Woman could possibly produce
anything so empty and so lacking in taste as these caricatures
of the two poets, in which even the portrait likeness has been
missed completely. More recent works by Sinding belong
rather to Denmark and Germany than to Norway.

Mathias Skeibrok was born in Lister in 185 1. After
spending some time in Jerichau's atelier in Copenhagen, he

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 629

came to Paris in 1876 upon a government allowance, and
remained there four years. At the Universal Exposition of
1878 he exhibited his first larger piece, Ragnar Lodbrok in
the Serpents' Den, which is now to be seen in the National
Gallery. There are indications that when the artist began
this work he had some sort of concept of a Northern Prome-
theus, the embodiment of strength and power writhing under
restraining bonds. The necessary anatomical studies, how-
ever, proved to be so arduous for the youthful and conscien-
tious sculptor that they robbed him of much of the vitality
which should have gone into the execution itself. The result
came to be a very muscular figure of a man, who writhes in
pain and yet whose anguish cannot touch us deeply because
our emotional reaction is constantly disturbed by fresh dis-
coveries of protruding muscles.

During these earlier years of his career Skeibrok executed
a series of half-size statuettes, principally upon historical
themes, such as Tjostolf Aalesen, Snorre, and The Outlaw.
More profoundly treated than these historical subjects are
Skeibrok's plain and simple representations of episodes from
daily life, the two genre statuettes : Mother is Watching, and
Weary. The last-named work is by and large the foremost
fruit of Skeibrok's talent, intensely conceived and carefully
finished. It is a very unassuming representation of a young
country girl overpowered by weariness. Relaxed in sleep the
youthful, half-dressed woman is resting with her arm over
the back of a chair and her head inclined heavily upon her
shoulder. The figure is to be found in several Norwegian
collections, among them the National Gallery, and also in
private galleries.

Until a short time before his death in 1896 Skeibrok was
occupied for a series of years with the largest artistic prob-
lem of his career, the decoration of the great pediment of
the University main building. The composition shows
Athene endowing with soul the man to whom Prometheus
has given body. An allegory of this kind was certainly not
suited to Skeibrok's temperament, nor did such spacious and
decorative work accord well with his talents.

630

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Vala Rising from the Sea, by Soren

Lexow-Hansen. In the National

Gallery

Skeibrok's production as a
portraitist was very compre-
hensive. He executed busts
of a large number of our
most prominent celebrities,
such as Edvard Grieg and
Bjornson, Johan Sverdrup
and Soren Jaabaek, Ernst
Sars and Doctor Danielsen,
Laura Gundersen and
Johanne Reimers, and many
others. Skeibrok's busts are
serious pieces of work, but
usually dry and hard as to.
form. The best among them
is without question the
heroic, powerfully formed
portrait head of Eilert
Sundt, which adorns a public
square in Christiania. One
side of Skeibrok's winning
personality, which brought
him many friends, but which
was totally dissociated from
his activities as a sculptor,
was his vigorous humor and
his original gifts as a racon-
teur.

The most finely equipped
of the three artists who re-
ceived their first training in
Middelthun's atelier was per-
haps Soren Lexow-Hansen,
who was born at Eker in
1845. Unfortunately, how-
ever, he appears to have

inherited from his master not only a deep reverence for art
but also a certain shrinking attitude toward production and

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 631

a lack of self-confidence. After Lexow-Hansen by his Vala
had given evidence of considerable powers, he created noth-
ing whatever, so far as public knowledge may determine.
The gravity and might of Eddie poetry rest upon the aged
seeress Vala as she steps forth from the fogs of the North
Sea, attenuated and forbidding, and bears witness to what
she knows, that the world which consumes itself in strife and
petty obstinacy shall perish, gods and men alike. Lexow-
Hansen died in 19 19.

To what a degree Norwegian sculpture in general, during
the years when Norwegian painting was at its zenith, wanted
strength to carry out a monumental task and lacked com-
pletely the ability, particularly so far as the younger sculptors
were concerned, to shape so much as a human figure, we have
distressing proof in the competitions for two public memo-
rials. One of these — for the statue of Holberg in Bergen —
resulted, and with absolute justice, in the awarding of the
commission to a foreign artist. The other — for the monu-
ment to Tordenskiold in Christiania — was a positive
scandal to Norwegian sculpture, manifesting itself in a
group of ludicrous models totally destitute of talent, while
the painter Axel Ender, whose model was superior to all
the others, even technically, carried off the prize and the
commission. His notably effective and decorative statue
was erected in 1901.

On the whole, with a few exceptions, there is not much to
be said for the younger Norwegian sculptors. Of those who
arose in the artistically stirring period of the eighties, when
the naturalists were fighting out their battle with the epigoni
of romanticism and with a stiff-necked public, Fjelde went to
America, where he worked and died. Utne went to Berlin,
where he became a decorator and remained for several years,
until he returned home to take part in the adornment of the
National Theatre, while the most gifted of them, Halfdan
Hertzberg, a practising physician, who threw himself en-
thusiastically into the struggle for naturalism and exhibited a
few things indicating both personality and talent, died before
his powers were much more than half developed.

632 SCANDINAVIAN ART

Among those who have lived at home there is Anders Svor,
who has followed his art honestly and seriously under difficult
conditions and who, particularly in the statue of a nude young
girl, has produced a piece of work deserving of mention for
its sincerity; and finally, there is Jo Visdal, who perhaps more
than any of the others has made himself representative of this
generation of naturalists through his portrait busts. A nota-
ble example is his thoughtfully studied and characteristic bust
of old Head Master Knudsen, by which Visdal gained
deserved recognition.

Between the art of Gustav Vigeland and contemporary
sculpture in Norway there is a great gulf. More than that,
the entire production of Norwegian sculpture, viewed in per-
spective, has subordinate value as compared with his genius.
Gustav Vigeland was born near Mandal in 1869. Never in
Norwegian art have imagination and a sense of form been
united to such a degree as in his work. Yet that which more
than all else gives to his artistic achievements their imperisha-
ble quality is the strong individuality and the wealth of ideas
expressed in them. Very seldom have art and life been more
intimately joined. As confessions of the joy and the anguish
of living his sculpture has overflowed all the bounds of artistic
objectivity.

In reality Vigeland cannot be said to be the disciple of any
particular master." He has had no regular and systematic
artistic schooling. He has made brief visits to Bergslien's
and Skeibrok's ateliers and spent a year in Bissen's workshop
in Copenhagen, yet not in the capacity of an actual pupil. On
the whole, Middelthun alone among Northern sculptors
appears to have had a positive influence upon his develop-
ment. The distance betwen the two, however, and their dis-
similarities as to temperament and talent are sufficiently
obvious. Vigeland has learned more through travel than by
any other means. He has traveled much, seen much, and
ruminated more than most artists. Vigeland came to
maturity during the naturalistic and impressionistic periods in
Norwegian painting. Nevertheless he undoubtedly feels
himself to be in opposition to the older generation. Only

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 633

with Munch does he show a certain relationship. On the
whole, Vigeland stands and will always stand apart.

Vigeland's art is first and above all an unfolding of im-
agination. The art of the eighties and of the immediately
succeeding period was in the main concerned with realities.
Its aim was objectivity; it sought after environment and local
color. Vigeland's aim is the uncompromisingly personal,
regardless of enviroment ; still he seeks in the personal always
the universal, that which is, and changes not. None the less,
Vigeland owes something to the naturalists, something of dis-
tinct value. He is himself a naturalist as to form, and his
ability in composition stands on the shoulders of impression-
ism and from this point of vantage discovers new plastic pos-
sibilities. A relief composed on such lines as his Hell — the
chief work from Vigeland's youth — would have been incon-
ceivable before the days of impressionism. With its power-
ful perspective effects, its foreshortening and cross-cutting
and the picturesque play of shining projections and deep
shadows, this relief is almost infinitely removed from the
classic relief style and is predicated upon the impressionistic
movement.

Although a long series of youthful works precede this
gigantic relief, which comprises some two hundred figures, it
would seem as if most of those early pieces, among them the
life-size group Accursed, in the National Gallery, the reliefs
entitled The Judgment Day, The Horse of Death, The
Drunkards, and various minor groups, were only prepara-
tory studies by means of which the creator of Hell made
experiments and improved his manual dexterity. In this
work he rids himself of the speculation of his youth, of his
Westland pietism, and of the bitter moods engendered by
years of struggle. After he has finished it, his production
becomes more serene, more contemplative, more unassuming
in the choice of subjects, more heartfelt in character, more
noble as to form. The Hell was first executed in 1894 and
was entirely remodeled after a journey to Italy in 1 897. The
relief, in bronze, is to be found in the National Gallery.

That hell which Vigeland depicts in this work is not so

634 SCANDINAVIAN ART

much the place of torment after death as it is a modern pes-
simist's emotional and affecting poem about life itself and
sins against life. This hell has to do with the fetters of sense,
with the froth of the passions, with self-surrender and suicide.
In a giddy maelstrom the victims of all forces inimical to life
circle around the very principle of evil — Satan enthroned,
firm as the rock upon which he sits. It is a raging surf of
billowing humanity that tosses at his feet, bodies intertwined
with each other, clinging to each other with unslaked desire,
with hate, with satiety. They foam up about his limbs in a
combing wave of clasped arms, of bowed necks, of beseeching
glances. Over the bridge of good intentions tumble ever
renewed throngs down into an engulfing sea of vices. And
behind the prince of darkness, in the dry, sultry air that fills
this domain of egotism, hover unceasingly the yearning multi-
tudes driven on by unsatisfied desires, until the rabble is lost
beyond the hill of the suicides, where dead men and men
still living dangle in their nooses upon the gallows. Above
these rolling waves of doomed humanity that lap his feet, sits
the Evil One upon his rocky throne, insensible to it all, petri-
fied in the horror of complete realization of self. For him
there is no submission, no redemption. He is himself
supreme, the most evil among the evil, unchangeable, eternal.
He rests his jaws in his hands and sinks back upon himself,
sharing with none" the joy of his sufferings.

Into Vigeland's conception of beauty naturalism has
poured the beneficent drop of gall. As in the case of Dona-
tello and of Rembrandt, what men call the hideous appears in
the function of a subordinate element of his art. No one has
more passionately sought after what is characteristic, shunned
what is bland, despised smoothness, distrusted softness. His
figure style betrays hatred of all rococo forms in past and
present art.

Vigeland's earlier figures possess the most extreme slender-
ness and an accentuated boniness of structure which fre-
quently even verges on attenuation. He takes delight in the
wealth of surfaces upon a cranium; he is attracted to hollow
temples, to angular jaws. His plastic ideal, at any rate in

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 635

this period of his youth, was the man with narrow hips, sharp
shoulders, and prominent sinews, and the woman with a mas-
culine leanness of outline. His figures are always nude.
Costumes and attributive devices are practically unknown in
his art. Moreover, since action is to his mind the most sig-
nificant thing — action expressive of deed, of thought, of soul
■ — the bony framework is for him the most important feature
of the human body.

Love has a large place in Vigeland's productions. The
mystery of sex, the struggle between sex and thought are the
profoundest motives in his imaginative art. Upon these
themes he has created a long series of plastic poems, groups
of men and women to which he has given no other title than
Man and Woman.

At first all of these groups were less than half size, and
designed to be cast in bronze; more recently several of them
have been elaborated to full life size in the same material.
Some of these groups are to be found in Thiel's Gallery in
Stockholm ; one alone, A Man Holding a Woman Upon His
Knees, is in our National Gallery.

These compositions deal with life in its mutual relations.
Some are instinct with the joy of submission, and others with
the discord that sunders lovers : on the one hand, the kiss,
the embrace, the child as the tie that binds ; on the other hand,
the doubt, the jealousy, the moodiness that divide and isolate.
They deal with the ecstasies of love and with the rebellion of
reason against the senses, with tender emotions and agonizing
inward conflicts, with the renunciation of life itself in bound-
less longing for spiritual peace.

For beyond the veil of shifting sensuous moods this art
discerns the illimitable, the eternal. The loves of these men
and women vibrate above a metaphysical sounding-board of
doubts and premonitions that attune even gaiety itself to a
minor key. All that is joyous, all that is sorrowful in their
human lot takes on a higher potency at the thought of death,
and so their fear of the unknown lends to each momentary
feeling a deep passionateness.

Vigeland's imaginative art is not the whole of his art. In

636

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Bust of Professor Sophus Bugge, by Gustav
Vigeland. In the National Gallery

the course of the years he has produced a large number of
busts, which together constitute a veritable portrait gallery
of prominent Norwegians. A majority of the men who have
distinguished themselves above the ordinary run by their
talent in art, science, or politics he has modelled from life.
To enumerate them all, from Ibsen and Bjornson to Nansen
and Johannes Steen, would require too much space.

With the touch of genius he seizes the predominant char-
acter in a face, and with poetic force builds up about it a soul,

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 637

Bust of the Painter Emmanuel Vigeland, by
Gustav Vigeland. In the National Gallery

a personality. His portrait art, although completely nat-
uralistic as to form, is principally marked by intuitive psycho-
logical power. The tempo of the nerves, the hotness or slug-
gishness of the blood, the firmness or softness of the will —
all that which others merely suspect or glimpse vaguely in a
face, and which is the core of personality, the brilliant por-
traitist calls forth from the conformation of a head or the
lines of a facial mask and draws it to his heart in sympathy
or thrusts it aside with aversion.

In Vigeland's case the work has almost without exception
been based upon sympathy with the subject. In hardly a
single instance has he executed a portrait bust to order. He
has himself chosen his sitters. Witness the head of Bjornson,
in the National Gallery, seized in a moment of extreme vigor,
self-confidently poised upon a neck as strong as a bull's,
sparkling with intellect and will. Witness further the head
of Sophus Bugge, the thinker, with its remarkably inward

638 SCANDINAVIAN ART

and absent expression; his glance is introspective, but like a
forge raised above the workshop of his thought, the hair
lifts itself in the semblance of an aspiring flame above his
lofty brow. Or, look at Ibsen's marmoreal head, like a jut-
ting cliff, the very image of concentration upon an inmost
self; and Garborg's brooding physiognomy with its haggard
features and affecting, sorrowful eyes. Further, note the
vivacious face of Gunnar Heiberg, with wit and sensibility
playing about the mouth and eyes, and with self-confidence
written upon the forehead. And finally, observe the excel-
lent bust of the sculptor's young brother, Emmanuel Vige-
land, clean and noble of outline as a Greek ivy-crowned head,
and with youthfulness and warmth in his lips. The greater
number of these busts are now in the National Gallery, in
very deed a series of portraits which, in a twofold sense, our
people may be proud of.

During the years that have passed since the opening of the
new century Vigeland has been chiefly occupied with monu-
mental problems: the monument to Abel, erected in 1908;
the statue of Wergeland, set up at Christianssand in 1908;
the statues of Nordraak and of Camilla Collett, both dating
from 191 1. Throughout the last seven or eight years the
artist has been working upon the masterpiece of his life, The
Fountain.

The monument to the mathematician Nils Henrik Abel
has taken shape as an apotheosis of the inspired, creative
mind in its half unconscious soaring. Borne aloft by dimly
perceived forces, hardly realized by himself, the young hero
of thought flies through space, his countenance resplendent
with understanding, his vision piercing the fog, and his nude
body rising in triumphant assurance that the goal is near.
Formal objections might be made against the aesthetic
effectiveness of the group in its present setting, delineated
freely as it is upon the open sky and lacking as the silhouette
is in the proper repose, and one might have to admit that the
colossal design gives evidence both of the difficulty of the
problem and the youthfulness of the artist. Nevertheless,
no one with any appreciation of quality in art can remain

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 639

insensible to the brilliant thought and the daring composition
which distinguish the monument. In Vigeland's production
the Abel group stands as a milestone between his early period
with its storm and stress and the period of thorough maturity.
In certain respects it denotes a completion; in other respects,
a fresh beginning.

While Vigeland's passionate art was before touched by a
dry, hectic heat, as of a consuming fire, rather than charac-
terized by the superabundance of a mature mind, there has
come over his work in later years increased plenitude and
repose. The feverishness and the mirky vision of youth have
given way to harmony and love of beauty in the grown man.
What was painful in his art has been overcome by what is
pleasing. In agreement with this changed view of life, his
figure style has undergone a transformation. His earlier
style was marked by a palpable aversion from amplitude of
form. Already in the first years of the new century, however,
a foreshadowing departure is to be noted in his figure style.
In 1905 I pointed out, in a written discussion of the matter,
that later works and studies indicated that the typical manner
of his youth was taking on new features, that it was develop-
ing into something stronger and fuller, that his style through-
out was becoming more vigorously rounded than before.

This maturing process began with The Fountain. In the
Abel group the artist's one-sided tendency toward naturalistic
methods of fashioning his subjects reaches its extreme limit.
The impressionistic, picturesque treatment of surface and the
inchoate, restless forms yield in recent works to a more
beautiful, ripe, and classical style.

As yet, it is true, The Fountain, upon which Vigeland has
been working with untiring Titanic creative energy these
many years, is a good way from completion, and in so far lies
outside the scope of this review. So much, none the less, can
assuredly be said on the basis of such studies and finished
portions as he has permitted outsiders to see, that the work
will be Vigeland's masterpiece and a unique achievement in
the history of modern sculpture. It will be a mighty synthesis
of his art and his philosophy of life, a bronze hymn of life,

640

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Detail for Fountain, by Gustav Vigeland

infinitely rich and changing as life itself, so expressed in art
that thought may grasp it. Here are men, women, and
children — nude, appearing singly and in groups, resting,
struggling, yearning, loving, sorrowing; now passionately
moved, storm-driven and tossed about by emotions, now

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 641

Detail for Fountain, by Gustav Vigeland

sunk in musing and in dreams. Man and woman meet each
other beneath the crowns of these fabled trees, the throng of
the unborn floats like a cloud, like a presage through the
leaves, and against the trunk leans heavily one who is weary

642

SCANDINAVIAN ART

Detail for Fountain, by Gustav Vigeland

of days. This is life itself, from the time it wells forth till
it sinks away. In another tree death bides his hour, crouched
among the boughs.

Yet what is the idea of this work without its wealth of
forms! What are descriptive words in comparison to the
varying rhythms of line, the beautiful, living, bodily contours.
It is in this work, still inaccessible to the public, that, so far
as I may judge from what I have seen, the great transforma-
tion in Vigeland's style has taken place, the transformation
that has been mentioned above and which also has manifested
itself in a few other original works, contemporaneous with

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART

643

Torso of a Woman, by Gustav Vigeland. In the National Gallery

The Fountain, that of late years have come from his work-
shop. The most significant of these pieces are the group in
marble, Mother and Child, recently acquired by the Art
Museum in Copenhagen, and the splendid Torso of a
Woman, also in marble, which is reproduced here from the

644

SCANDINAVIAN ART

original in the Norwegian National Gallery. Both of these
works are based upon older studies on a smaller scale. In this
torso of a woman with a pure and proud countenance, almost
as severe as that of a goddess, and with a body captivatingly
young and beautiful as that of any daughter of earth, and in
this youthful mother kneeling with her little boy in her arms
— a piece wherein the contrast between the woman's soft,
mature body and the boy's thin, angular, undeveloped form

Young Man, by Ingebrigt Vik.
National Gallery

In the

resolves itself into the most melodious play of lines — in both
of these Vigeland's art has reached the height of its growth.
The younger Norwegian sculptors, with a very few excep-
tions, cannot be said to have cast fresh glory upon their art
and their country. A series of public competitions for various
larger commissions, and notably the hopeless effort to pro-

MODERN NORWEGIAN ART 645

vide a satisfactory design for an Eidsvold monument, have
given distressing evidence of the lack of capacity to deal with
monumental problems. As a consoling exception one man
emerges above the common level, Ingebrigt Vik.

Born in Hardanger in 1 867, he is no longer to be reckoned
among the very young ; nevertheless, it is only in recent years,
after a persistent struggle, that his art has broken a way to
real success. For a considerable time external circumstances
compelled him to employ his powers in pure handicraft as a
modeller of decorations or in those purlieus of art, wood-
carving and ivory-carving. However, after several winters
at the Academy of Art in Copenhagen, after some years of
study in Paris — under the guidance of Injalbert in 1902 and
under his own initiative from 1907 to 1910, and after a jour-
ney to Italy in 1906, he unfolded his talents freely and
maturely in a series of nude statues in marble and bronze.
For the most part it is the undeveloped forms of very young
girls, the gently rounded shapes of children, and the slender,
lithe figures of youths which have especially attracted him.
In works such as the two marble statues of a sitting and a
standing nude young girl, now in the National Gallery, and
still more in the lovely bronze statue of a Narcissus-like
youth, signed 19 13 and also to be found in the National Gal-
lery, he reveals a sense for calm, classical beauty that is
unique in Norwegian art ; he reveals as well a tender solicitude
for the most refined graduations in form which marks Vik as
one of the most prominent men in later Norwegian art.

INDEX TO ARTISTS

PAGE

Aagaard, C. F., 1833-1895 313

Aarsleff, Carl, 1852-1918 414

Abildgaard, N. A., 1743-1809 22, 113, 241-243, 393

Achen, Georg, 1860-1912 346

Acke, J. A. G., 1859- 170

Adelcrantz, Karl Fredrik, 17 16-1796 84, 85, 86, no

Ahlgren, Olof, 1876- 221

Als, Peder, 1 726-1 776 241

Ancher, Fru Anna, 1859- 328-330

Ancher, Michael, 1849- 326, 327-330, 515

Anderberg, Axel, i860- 225, 226

Andersen, Valdemar, 1875- 389

Ankarcrona, Gustav, 1869- 201-202

Arbo, N. P., 1831-1892 473-475

Arborelius, Olof, 1842-19 15 141

Arenius, Olof, 1 701-1766 85

Arosenius, Ivar, 1878-1909 205-206

Askevold, Anders, 1855-1900 472

Astrup, Nicolai, 1880- 610

Aumont, Louis, 1 805-1 879 263

Baade, Knud, 1 808-1 879 448

Bache, Otto, 1839- 315-316

Backer, Harriet, 1845- 485, 488, 527, 550-554

Baerentzen, Emilius, 1 799-1 868 263

Basrentzen, Thomas, 1869- 415

Balke, Peder, 1804-1887 470

Bauer, John, 1882-1918 18, 204

Baumann, Povl, 1878- 43 1

Beck, David, 1621-1656 66

Behm, Vilhelm, 1859- 172-173

Benckert, Elis, 1881-1913 234

Bendz, Vilhelm, 1804-1832 256, 257, 258, 260

Bentsen, Ivar, 1876- 431

Berg, Axel, 1856- 430

Berg, Magnus, 1666-1739 27, 438-439, 615-616

647

648 INDEX TO ARTISTS

PAGE

Berg, Yngve, 1887- 206

Bergh, Edvard, 1828-1880 16, 135-136, 173

Bergh, Richard, 1858-1919 173-175

Bergslien, Brynjulf, 1830-1898 33, 623-624, 632

Bergslien, Knut, 1827-1908 473

Bergstrom, Alfred, 1869- 173

Bergstrom, Sigge, 1880- 204

Bindesboll, M. G., 1800- 1856 424-426, 429

Bindesboll, Thorvald, 1846-1908 24, 370

Birger, Hugo, 1854-1887 166

Bissen, H. V., 1798-1868 408-412, 413, 618, 620, 623

Bissen, Rud., 1846-1911 318

Bissen, Vilhelm, 1836-1913 412, 413

Bjerg, Johs., 1886- 418

Bjerre, Niels, 1864- . . . . 353

Bjorck, Oscar, i860- 170-172

Blache, Christian, 1838-1920 318

Bloch, Carl, 1834-1890 286-288, 316

Blom, Fredrik, 1 781-1853 116

Blommer, Nils Johan, 1816-1853 16, 125

Boberg, Anna, 1864- 19, 202

Boberg, Ferdinand, i860- 19, 186, 228-230

Bodom, Erik, 1 829-1 879 472

Boklund, Johan Kristofer, 1817-1880 132

Bonnesen, Carl, 1868- 415

Borch, Christopher, 1817-1896 618-619, 628

Borch, Leuning, 1853-1910 430

Borch, Martin, 1852- 430

Borjeson, John, 1836-1910 207-208

Bouchardon, Jacques-Philippe, 171 1-1753 77

Bourdon, Sebastien, 161 6-1 671 66

Boyesen, Rostrup, 1882- 391

Brandstrup, Ludvig, 1861- 414, 415

Brasen, Hans Ole, 1849- 335

Bratland, Jacob, 1859-1906 485, 57i> 575

Breda, Karl Fredrik von, 1759-1818 15, 104-105

Brendekilde, Hans Andersen, 1857- 353

Brendstrup, Thorald, 1812-1883 282

Brummer, Carl, 1864- 430

Budal, Hans, 1 830-1 879 619

INDEX TO ARTISTS 649

PAGE

Bundgaard, Anders, 1864- 415

Buntzen, Heinrich, 1803-1892 282

Bystrom, Johan Niklas, 1783-1848 1 16-119, 122

Calmeyer, Jacob, 1 802-1884 452

Cappelen, August, 1827-1852 29, 32, 455, 466-468, 470

Carlberg, Johan Eberhard, 1683-1773 85, 86

Carlsen, Schlichting, 1852- „335

Carstens, Jakob Asmus, 1754-1798 21, 245, 393, 394, 399

Cederstrom, Gustaf, 1845- 149-150

Christensen, Christen, 1806- 1845 406

Christensen, Godfred, 1845- 317

Christiansen, Poul, 1855- 387, 388

Christiansen, R., 1863- 353

Clason, Isac Gustav, 1856- 19, 227

Clausen, Ludvig, 1851-1904 430

Clement, Gad, 1867- 382-383

Clemmensen, A. L., 1852- 430

Collett, Fredrik, 1839-1913 30, 465, 482-483, 532, 542

Conradsen, Harald, 1817-1905 406

Dahl, Johan Christian Clausson, 1 788-1 857

21, 28, 439, 439-448, 450, 452, 454, 455, 464, 472, 479, 481, 604

Dahl, Mikael, 1666-1743 84

Dahl, Siegwald, 1 827-1902 472

Dahlbergh, Erik, 1625-1703 64, 66, 67

Dahlerup, Vilhelm, 1836-1907 428

Dalgas, Carlo, 1820-1850 310

Dall, Hans, 1862-1920 357

Dalsgaard, Christen, 1 824-1 907 22, 295-298, 299, 409

Deberitz, Per, 1880- 32, 604, 612

Desmarees, Georg, 1 697-1 776 84

Desprez, Jean-Louis, 1737-1804 no, 114

Diriks, Karl Edvard, 1855- 30, 542, 555-557

Dorph, Anton, 1831-1914 301

Dorph, Bertha, 1875- 382

Dorph, N. V., 1862- 351-352

Dreyer, Dankvart, 1816-1852 311,312

D'Uncker, Karl, 1828-1866 128

Eckersberg, Christoffer Vilhelm, 1783-1853. . . .21, 22, 24, 241, 245

246, 247-269, 280, 281, 282, 283, 294, 314, 389, 406, 450, 453
Eckersberg, Johan Fredrik, 1 822-1 870 470-471, 473, 542

650 INDEX TO ARTISTS

PAGE

Eddelien, Heinrich, 1803-1852 256, 267

Edstrom, David, 1873- 215', 216

Egedius, Halfdan, 1877-1899 31, 532, 540, 593-595, 601

Ehrenstrahl, David Klocker von, 1 629-1698

15,21, 69, 70, 71-72, 83, 84, 162

Ehrensvard, Karl August, 1745-1800 102, 103, 113

Eiebakke, August, 1867- 575-576

Eigtved, Nikolai, 1701-1754 421, 422

Ekenaes, Jan, 1847-1920 485

Ekstrom, Per, 1844- 157-158

Eldh, Carl J., 1873 - 214-215

Elgstrom, Ossian, 1883- 18, 203

Ender, Axel, 1853-1920 631

Engelsted, Malthe, 1852- 343

Engstrom, Albert, 1869- 18, 205-206

Engstrom, Leander, 1886- 18, 205

Erdmann, Axel, 1873- 203

Erichsen, Edv., 1876- 415

Erichsen, Thorvald, 1868- 31, 597-600, 601, 603

Erichsen, Vigilius, 1 722-1 782 241

Ericson, Sigfrid, 1879- 235

Eriksson, Christian, 1858- 19, 175, 211-213, 232

Eugen, Prince, 1865-

17, 19, 155, 156, 157, 170, 171, 179-182, 184, 186, 226, 230, 234

Evens, Otto, 1826-1895 413

Exner, Julius, 1 825-1910 22, 297, 298-300

Fagerlin, Ferdinand, 1 825-1907 16, 128-129

Fahlcrantz, Karl Johan, 1774-1861 120, 121, 445

Fearnley, Thomas, 1802-1841 29, 32, 445-448, 452, 454, 604

Fenger, Ludvig, 1833-1905 429

Find, Ludvig, 1869- 383-384

Fisker, Kay, 1 893- 43 1

Fjaestad, Gustav, 1868- 17, 202

Fjelde, Jakob, 1859-1896 631

Fladager, Ole, 1832-1871 619

Flintoe, Johan, 1 786-1 870 449-450

Fogelberg, Bengt Erland, 1786-1854 118, 119

Folkestad, Bernhard, 1879- 31, 609-610

Forsberg, Nils, 1842- 148-149

Foss, Harald, 1843- 312

INDEX TO ARTISTS 651

PAGE

Freund, Herman Ernst, 1786- 1840 25, 263, 290, 403-406

Frich, I. C, 1 8 10-1858 311, 448-449

Friis, Hans, 1 839-1 892 313

Frisch, I. D., 1835-1867 311

Fritz, A., 1 828-1 906 313

Fritzsch, Claudius Ditlev, 1 763-1 841 246

Frolich, Lorens, 1820-1908 283-286, 371

Frydensberg, Carl, 1872- 357

Gauguin, Jean, 1881- 418

Gebauer, Christian David, 1 777-1 831 246

Gerle, Aron, i860- 196

Gertner, Johan Vilhelm, 181 8-1 871 282

Giersing, Harald, 1881- 24, 391

Gjorwell, Karl Kristofer, 1 766-1 837 116

Gloersen, Jacob, 1852-1912 485, 542, 557-559

Glosimodt, Olaf, 1821-1897 619

Gorbitz, Johan, 1 782-1853 451-452

Gothe, Erik Gustav, 1 779-1838 1 19-120

Gottschalck, Albert, 1866-1906 357

Grande, Severin, 1869- 604

Gronvold, Bernt, 1859- 485

Gronvold, Marcus, 1845- 485

Griinewald, Isaac, 1889- 18, 205

Grut, Torben, 1871- 235

Gude, Hans, 1825-1903

27, 29, 454-466, 479, 480, 482, 483, 484, 619

Gurlitt, Louis, 1812-1897 283

Haavardsholm, Frojdis, 1896- 603

Hagborg, August, 1852-1921 157, 166

Hall, Peter Adolf, 1739-1793 15, 94> 95

Hallstrom, Gunnar, 1875- 202-203

Hammer, H. I., 1815-1882 293

Hammershoi, Svend, 1873- 385-386

Hammershoi, Vilh., 1864-1916 23, 346-349

Hansen, Axel, 1853- 414

Hansen, Chr., 1803-1883 427

Hansen, Chr. Fr., 1 756-1 845 423

Hansen, Constantin, 1804-1880

21, 256, 263, 264-266, 290, 363, 371, 406

Hansen, Elise Constantin, 1858- 373

652 INDEX TO ARTISTS

PAGE

Hansen, Hans, 1 727-1 803 246

Hansen, Hans, 1821-1858 619

Hansen, Hans Nik., 1853- 335

Hansen, Heinrich, 1821-1890 312

Hansen, Henning, 1880- 431

Hansen, Niels, 1880- 391

Hansen, Peter, 1868- 23, 388, 389

Hansen, Theophilus, 1813-1891 427

Hansen- Jacobsen, Niels, 1861- 25, 415-416

Harleman, Karl, 1 700-1 753 48, 76, 80, 162

Harsdorff, Caspar Frederik, 1 735-1 799 422-423, 424

Hartmann, Oluf, 1879-1910 382

Haslund, Otto, 1842-1917 342, 343

Hasselberg, Per, 1850-1894 166, 208-210

Hasselriis, Louis, 1844-1912 413

Haupt, Georg, 1741-1784 83, 96, 101

Hausser, Elias David, 1685- 1745 42 1

Hedberg, Erik, 1868- 201

Heiberg, Jean, 1884- 32, 612

Hellqvist, Carl Gustaf, 1851-1890 150

Helsted, Axel, 1847-1907 343, 344

Hennig, Otto, 1871- 604

Hennigs, Gosta von, 1866- 198

Henning, Gerhard, 1880- 221

Henningsen, Erik, 1855- 344

Henningsen, Frants, 1850-1908 344

Herholdt, Johan Daniel, 1818-1902 427-428

Hertervig, Lars, 1 830-1902 27, 468-470

Hertzberg, Halfdan, 1857-1890 631

Hertzog, F. G., 1821-1892 411, 413

Hesselbom, Otto, 1848-1913 17, 202

Hetsch, Gustav Frederik, 1788-1864 423-424, 426

Heyerdahl, Hans, 1857-1913 • -3Q, 485, 486, 491-496, 527, 55i> 580

Hilker, G. Christian, 1 807-1875 265, 406

Hill, Carl, 1849-1911 157

Hillestrom, Per, the Elder, 1 732-1816 101, 102

Hjortzberg, Olle, 1872- 202, 230, 235

Hockert, Johan Fredrik, 1826- 1866 16-17, 136-138

Holbech, Niels Peter, 1804-1889 263

Holbo, Kristen, 1869- 603

INDEX TO ARTISTS 653

PAGE

Holm, Chr., 1804-1846 282

Holm, Hans J., 1835-1916 25, 429

Holm, Harald, 1866- : 387

Holmboe, Thorolf, 1866- 31, 465, 577-579

Holmgren, Herman, 1842-1914 224

Holsoe, Carl, 1863- 345, 346

Holten, Sofle, 1858- 335

Holten, Fru Susette, 1863- 373

Horberg, Per, 1746-1816 101

Hornemann, Christian, 1 765-1 844 246

Hullgren, Oscar, 1869- 202

Hunsus, Andreas Herman, 1 814-1866 263

Hygom, Louis, 1 879- 43 1

listed, Peter, 1861- 346

Ingemann, Bernhard, 1869- 430

Ingwersen, Jens, 1871- 430

Irminger, V., 1850- 343-344

Isaachsen, Olaf, 1835-1893 473, 475-476

Jacobsen, August, 1868- 604

Jacobsen, Carl Ludvig, 1835- 624

Jacobsson, Ernst, 1 839-1 905 224

Jansen, Luplau, 1869- 357

Jansson, Eugen, 1862-1915 17, 175, 182-184

Jardin, Nicolas Henri, 1720- 1799 422

Jarl, Viggo, 1879- 415

Jensen, Alb., 1847-1913 428

Jensen, C. A., 1792-1870 255, 256, 259, 453

Jensen, J. L., 1 800-1 856 282

Jensen, Karl, 1851- 346

Jerichau, Harald, 1851-1878 291

Jerichau, Jens Adolph, 1816-1883 406-408, 409, 619, 629

Jerichau-Baumann, Fru Elizabeth, 1819-1881 280

Jernberg, August, 1826-1896 16, 129-130

Jerndahl, Aron, 1858- 214

Jerndorff, August, 1846-1906 340, 341-342

Jespersen, Henrik, 1853- 357

Jessen, Tycho, 1 870-1921 384

Johansen, Otto, 1886- 605

Johansen, Viggo, 185 1- 25, 330, 331-333

Johansson, Aron, i860- 225

654 INDEY TO ARTISTS

PAGE

Johnsson, Ivar, 1885- 221

Jonsson, Einar, 1874- 25

Jorde, Lars, 1865- 579

Jorgensen, Aksel, 1883- 24, 391

Jorgensen, Erail, 1858- 430

Jorgensen, Eugen, 1858-1910 430

Jorgensen, Sven, 1861- 485, 57*, 572-574

Jorgensen, Thorvald, 1867- 430

Josephson, Ernst, 1851-1906 17, 151-157, 158, 166, 210

Josephsson, Erik, 1864- 224

Juel, Jens, 1745-1802 22, 243-245

Jiirgensen, Fritz, 181 8-1863 312

Kabell, Ludvig, 1853- 342

Kallstenius, Gottfrid, 1861- 172, 173

Kampmann, Hack, 1856-1920 430

Karsten, Ludvig, 1876- 32, 605, 607

Kavli, Arne, 1878- 31, 608-609

Kielland, Kitty, 1843-1914 465, 485, 527, 55*, 554"555

Kittelsen, Theodor, 1857-1913 485, 546-550

Kjaerschou, Frederik, 1805-1891 282

Kjeldrup, A. E., 1826-1869 283

Klein, Vilhelm, 1835-1913 428

Klint, P. V. Jensen, 1853- 431

Knudsen, Hans, 1865- 356

Kobke, Christen, 1810-1848

2*1, 22, 24, 25, 255, 256, 258-260, 264, 406, 453

Koch, F., 1857-1905 430

Koch, V., 1852-1902 430

Kolle, Anton, 1827-1872 311

Kolsto, Fredrik, i860- 485, 559

Krafrt, David von, 1 655-1 724 83, 85

Krafrt, Per, the Elder, 1 724-1 793 98

Krafrt, Per, the Younger, 1 777-1 863 105

Krafrt, Frederik, 1 823-1 854 311

Kragh, Johannes, 1870- 372

Kratzenstein-Stub, Christian Gottlieb, 1 783-1816 246

Kreuger, Nils, 1858- 17, 173, 175, 177-179, 215

Krohg, Christian, 1852- 30, 507-508,

512-523, 527, 534, 535, 542, 547, 555, 556, 560, 570, 580, 608
Krohg, Oda, i860- 576-577

INDEX TO ARTISTS 655

PAGE

Krohg, Per, 1889- 32

Kronberg, Julius, 1850-1921 78, 146-148, 216

Kroyer, Peter Severin, 1 851-1909

22, 23, 314, 315, 321-327, 4H, 515, 543

Kikhler, Albert, 1 803-1886 256, 266-267

Kyhn, Knud, 1880- 391

Kyhn, Vilhelm, 1819-1903 25, 307-309

La Cour, Janus, 1837-1909 313-314

Lafrensen, Nils, the Younger, 1 737-1807 15, 92-94

Lallerstedt, Erik, 1864- 228

Larcheveque, Pierre Hubert, 1 721-1778 80, 106-107

Larsen, Emanuel, 1823-1859 311

Larsen, Johannes, 1867- 23, 386, 387

Larsen, Jorgen, 1851-1910 414

Larsen, Knud, 1865- 357

Larsen Stevns, Niels, 1864- 373

Larson, Marcus, 1825-1864 130-132

Larsson, Carl, 1853-1919 17, 55, 158-165, 166, 167, 222, 226

Larsson, Gottfrid, 1875- 221

Laureus, Alexander, 1 783-1 823 1 20-1 21

Lehmann, Edvard, 1815-1892 282

Levy, Frederik, 1851- 430

Lexow-Hansen, Soren, 1845- 19 19 625, 630-631

Liljefors, Bruno, i860- 17, 185-188

Lilljekvist, Fredrik, 1863- 227

Lindberg, Adolf, 1839-1916 221

Lindberg, Erik, 1873- 200, 201

Lindgren, Gustaf, 1863- 227

Lindman, Axel, 1848- 172

Lindstrom, Rikard, 1 882- 203

Lochen, Kalle, 1865-1893 571, 574

Locher, Carl, 1851-1915 318

Lorentzen, Christian August, 1749-1828 245-246, 261

Lund, Henrik, 1879- 32, 607-608

Lund, I. L., 1777-1867 255

Lund, Jens, 1873- 418

Lundberg, Gustav, 1695-1786 15, 87-89, 99

Lundberg, Teodor, 1852- 208

Lundbye, Johan Thomas, 1818-1848

25, 302-304, 308, 309, 310, 333

656 INDEX TO ARTISTS

PAGE

Lundgren, Egron, 1815-1875 16, 135

Madsen, Viggo, 1885- '. 391

Magdahl-Nielsen, 1862- 430

Mailing, Peder, 1 781-1865 423

Malmsten, Carl, 1888- 234

Malmstrom, August, 1829-1901 16, 138-140

Mansson, Filip, 1864- 232

Marstrand, Vilhelm, 18 10-1873

21, 22, 256, 269, 270-279, 280, 286, 289, 315, 316

Martin, Elias, 1739-1818 15, 101-103

Martin, Johan Fredrik, 1755-1816 103

Masreliez, Louis Adrien, 1748-1810 79, 114-115

Melbye, Anton, 1818-1875 280-281

Melbye, Vilhelm, 1824-1882 281

Meldahl, Ferdinand, 1827-1908 428

Meyer, Ernst, 1797-1861 267-268

Meytens, Martin, the Elder, 1648-1736 84

Meytens, Martin van, the Younger, 1675-1770 84

Michelsen, Hans, 1789-1859 616-618

Middelthun, Julius, 1820-1886. .33, 613, 619-622, 624, 625, 630, 632

Milles, Carl, 1875- 19, 215-220, 230, 234

Mohl, Kristian, 1876- 385-386

Molin, Johan Peter, 1814-1873 133, 135

Moller, Carl, 1857- 224

Moller, I. P., 1783-1854 255

Mols, Niels P., 1859- 353

Monies, David, 1812-1894 282

Morner, Hjalmar, 1 794-1837 122

Mortensen, Carl, 1861- 415

Miiller, Adam, 1811-1844 256, 267

Miiller, Morten, 1828-1911 471-472

Munch, Edvard, 1863- 13, 27, 30, 31-32, 34. 45 1,

514-515, 529, 572, 574, 576, 580-591, 605, 606, 607, 609, 633

Munch, Jacob, 1776-1839 450-451, 452

Munthe, Gerhard, 1849-

...27, 30, 480, 485, 507, 532, 534-541, 551, 572, 595, 600, 602

Munthe, Ludvig, 1841-1896 29, 478-480, 534, 542, 557

Munthe-Siberg, Anna, 1854- :42

Naur, Albert, 1889- 391

Nerman, Einar, 1888- 204

INDEX TO ARTISTS 657

PAGE

Neumann, Carl, 1 833-1 891 281

Nielsen, Amaldus, 1838- 29, 479, 480-483

Nielsen, Anne Marie Carl, 1863- 415

Nielsen, Ejnar, 1872- 23, 380-382

Nielsen, Kai, 1882- 25, 417-418

Niss, Thorvald, 1842-1905 317-318, 319

Nordenberg, Bengt, 1822- 1902 128

Nordstrom, Karl, 1855- 17, 158, 175, 176-177, 215

Norlind, Ernst, 1877- 203

Norregaard, Asta, 1853- 485

Norrman, Herman, 1864-1906 184

Norstedt, Reinhold, 1 843-191 1 141-142

Notice, Berndt, 1440-1517 54, 55

Nyrop, Martin, 1849-1921 25, 26, 431-434

Nystrom, Axel, the Elder, 1 793-1868 121, 132

Odegaard, Hans, 1876- 604

Olrik, H., 1830-1890 288

Onsager, Soren, 1878- 31, 610

Ostberg, Ragnar, 1866- 19, 168, 232-234

Osterman, Bernhard, 1870- 198-201

Osterman, Emil, 1870- 1 98-201

Ottesen, O. D., 1816-1892 312

Palm, Gustaf Vilhelm, 1810-1890 124, 158

Palmstedt, Erik, 1 741-1803 85

Pasch, Lorens, the Younger, 1 733-1 805 99

Pauelsen, Erik, 1 749-1 790 245

Pauli, Georg, 1855- 166, 167-169, 196, 226, 234

Pauli, Hanna, 1864- 169-170

Paulsen, Julius, i860- 25, 349-351

Pedersen, Viggo, 1854- 364, 371-372

Pedersen, Vilhelm, 1 820-1 859 311

Pedersen-Dan, 1859- 415

Pederson, Ole, 1856-1898 357

Percy, Arthur C : son, 1886- 205

Peters, Carl, 1 822-1 899 411, 413

Petersen, Anna, 1845-1910 335

Petersen, Carl, 1874- 43 1

Petersen, Ove, 1 830-1 892 428

Petersen, Rud., 1871- 357

Petersen, Thorolf, 1858- 357

658 INDEX TO ARTISTS

PAGE

Petersen, Vilhelm, 1830-1913 429

Peterson, Ludvig, 1853- , 228

Peterssen, Eilif, 1852- 30, 465, 485, 486-491, 493, 535, 55i

Pettersson, Axel, 1868- 221

Petzholdt, Frederik, 1 805-1 838 256, 266

Philipsen, Theodor, 1840-1920 25, 333-334

Pilo, Karl Gustav, 1711-1793 21, 96-98, 241

Precht, Burchardt, 1651-1738 48, 68, 73-74

Qvarnstrom, Carl Gustaf, 1810-1867 133

Rafael-Radberg, Eric, 1881- 221

Rafn, Aage, 1890- 431

Rasmussen, Carl, 1841-1893 318

Rehn, Jean Erik, 1 717-1793 96

Repholtz, Albert, 1863- 357

Revold, Axel, 1887- 612

Ring, Lauritz, 1854- 24, 25, 353-356

Roed, Holger, 1846-1874 291-292

Roed, Jorgen, 1 808-1 888 256, 260-263, 269, 331, 342, 383

Rohde, Johan, 1856- 374

Rohde, N. F., 1816-1886 282

Rorbye, Martinus, 1803- 1848 256, 260-262

Rosen, Anton, 1859- 430

Rosen, Georg von, 1843- 143-146, 201

Rosenberg, Edvard, 1858- 201

Rosenstand, Vilhelm, 1838-1915 316

Roslin, Alexander, 1 718-1793 15, 89-92, 100

Rude, Olaf, 1886- 391

Rump, Gotfred, 1816-1880. 309-310

Rusti, Olav, 1850- 485

Rydberg, Gustav, 1835- 141

Saabye, August, 1823-1916 411, 413

Sager-Nelson, Olof, 1 868-1 896 195-196

Salmson, Hugo, 1 843-1 894 157, 166

Salto, Axel, 1889- 391

Sandberg, Johan Gustav, 1 782-1 854 47

Sandberg, Gustaf, 1876- 221, 232

Sandels, Gosta, 1887-1919 18, 205

Scharff, William, 1886- 24, 391

Scheel, Signe, i860- 571, 574

Scheffel, Johan Henrik, 1690-1781 85

INDEX TO ARTISTS 659

PAGE

Schiodte, Erik, 1 849-1909 430

Schleisner, Christian, 18 10-1882 282

Schlichtkrull, Johan, 1866- 357

Schmidt, Alfr., 1858- 345

Scholander, Fredrik Vilhelm, 1816-1881 132-133

Schonberg, Torsten, 1882- 204

Schou, Karl, 1870- 388

Schou, L. A., 1838-1867 288-291

Schou, P. A., 1844-1914 346

Schouboe, Henrik, 1876- 384

Schroder, Georg Engelhard, 1 684-1 750 85

Schultz, Julius, 1 85 1- 414

Schultzberg, Anshelm, 1862- 18, 172

Schwartz, Frands, 1 850-1 91 7 321

Seligmann, Georg, 1866- 357

Sergei, Johan Tobias, 1740-18 14

16, 34, 95, 103, 106-113, 116, 163, 616

Siegumfeldt, Herman, 1833-1912 300-301

Simonsen, Niels, 1807-1885 282

Sinding, Elisabeth, 1846- 485

Sinding, Otto, 1842-1909 465, 480, 485, 604

Sinding, Sigmund, 1875- 604

Sinding, Stephan, 1846-1922 33, 614, 625-628

Sjoberg, Axel, 1866- 196

Skanberg, Carl, 1850-1883 153, 158

Skeibrok, Mathias, 1851-1896 625, 628-630, 632

Skovgaard, Joakim, 1856- 24, 25, 361-371, 372, 373, 527

Skovgaard, Niels, 1858- 24, 361-371, 372, 373, 416

Skovgaard, Peter Christian, 1817-1875

25, 304-307, 309, 310, 313, 361, 363, 372, 373, 416

Skredsvig, Christian, 1854- 493, 509, 527, 542-546, 55 1

Slott-Moller, Agnes, 1862- 374-377

Slott-Moller, Harald, 1864- 374-377

Smidth, Hans, 1839-1917 301

Smith, Vilhelm, 1867- 201

Sodermark, Olof Johan, 1790-1848 122-123, 125

Sohlberg, Harald, 1869- 31, 593, 595-597

Somme, Jacob Kielland, 1862- 485

Sondrup, Just. Nielsen, 1873- 415

Sonne, Jorgen, 1801-1890 269, 293-295, 351, 426

660 INDEX TO ARTISTS

PAGE

Soot, Eyolf, 1859- 564-566

Sorensen, C. F., 1818-1879 •. . 281

Sorensen, Henrik, 1882- 32, 612

Sorensen, Jorgen, 1861-1894 571-572

Sparre, Louis, 1863- 198

Stein, Theobald, 1829-1901 411, 413

Stenberg, Emerik, 1873- 201

Stenersen, Gudmund, 1863- 571, 575

Stenhammar, Ernst, 1859- 228

Stoltenberg, Mathias, 1 799-1 871 27, 452-453

Storck, H. B., 1839- 25, 428, 429

Strandman, Otto, 1871- 221

Strom, Halfdan, 1863- 566-570

Stiiler, Friedrich August, 1800-1865 133

Sundt-Hansen, Carl, 1841-1907 473, 475, 476-479, 524

Svarstad, A. C, 1869- 610

Svedlund, Pelle, 1865- 201

Svor, Anders, 1864- 632

Swane, Sigurd, 1879- 24, 391

Syberg, Fritz, 1862- 23, 25, 388-389, 390, 391

Tagtstrom, David, 1894- 2°5

Tannses, Marie, 1854- 57J> 574

Taraval, Guilliaume Thomas Raphael, the Elder, 1701-1750. . .

80, 82, 1 62, 1 63

Tegner, Hans, 1853- 345

Tegner, Rudolph, 1*873- 415

Tempelman, Olof, 1 746-1816 114

Tengbom, Ivar, 1878- 235-236

Tessin, Nikodemus, the Elder, 161 5-168 1 .67, 68, 73, 80, 81

Tessin, Nikodemus, the Younger, 1654-1728

48, 73-77, 80, 81, 96, 121, 162

Tetens, Vilhelm, 1871 or 1872- 384

Thaulow, Fritz, 1847-1906

30, 451, 465, 507-512, 527, 534, 535, 542, 556, 560, 570, 571, 572

Thegerstrom, Robert, 1857-1919 166, 172, 175

Therkildsen, M., 1850- 334

Thiele, Anton, 1 838-1902 335

Thies, Axel, i860- 345

Thomsen, Carl, 1847-1912 343, 344

Thorenfeld, Anton, 1839-1907 313

INDEX TO ARTISTS 661

PAGE

Thorvaldsen, Bertel, 1770-1844 16, 21,

27, 34, 106, 122, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 267, 393-403, 406,
408, 411, 413, 425, 426, 450, 451, 616, 617, 618, 619, 620, 623

Thura, Laurids, 1 706-1 759 421

Thygesen, Rudolf, 1880- 32, 612

Thylstrup, Georg, 1884- 418

Tidemand, Adolf, 1814-1876 27, 29, 454-

462, 472, 473, 475, 476, 477, 479, 498, 524, 529, 573, 619, 628

Torneman, Axel, 1880- 18, 204-205, 234

Torsteinson, Torstein, 1876- 609

Troili, Uno, 1815-1875 125-127

Trulson, Anders, 1874-191 1 203

Tuxen, Laurits, 1853- 3H, 3*5, 3J9-32i

Tvede, Gotfred, 1863- 430

Uchermann, Karl, 1855- 485, 527

Ulfsten, Nicolai, 1854-1885 527, 555

Utne, Lars, 1862- 631

Utzon-Franck, Einar, 1888- 418

Vallee, Jean de la, 1620-1696 67, 68

Vallee, Simon de la, d. 1642 68

Vedel, Herman, 1875- 384

Vermehren, Frederik, 1823-1910 22, 297, 300, 382, 409

Vigeland, Emmanuel, 1875- 637, 638

Vigeland, Gustav, 1869- 27, 33, 589, 614, 632-644

Vik, Ingebrigt, 1867- 644-645

Visdal, Jo, 1861- 632

Wagner, Fru Olga, 1873- 416-417

Wagner, Siegfried, 1874- 416, 417

Wahlberg, Alfred, 1834-1906 16, 140-141, 166

Wahlbom, Karl, 1810-1858 125

Wahlman, Lars, 1870- 234-235

Wallander, Alf, 1862-1914 196, 221, 222

Wallander, Gerda, i860- 196-197

Wallin, David, 1876- 201

Wandel, Sigurd, 1875- 384-385

Warming, Christoffer, 1865- 430

Wegmann, Bertha, 1848- 335

Weie, Edvard, 1879- 24, 391

Wenck, Henri, 185 1- 430

Wennerberg, Gunnar, 1863-1914 222

662 INDEX TO ARTISTS

PAGE

Wentzel, Nils Gustav, 1859- 561-564, 566, 573

Werenskiold, Dagfin, 1892- 30

Werenskiold, Erik, 1855- 29, 30, 479, 485, 507-508, 519,

523-534, 535, 542, 546, 548, 55i, 557, 575, 593, 595, 600, 602

Wergeland, Oscar Arnold, 1844-1910 485

Wertmiiller, Adolf Ulrik, 1751-1812 15, 100, 101

Westin, Fredrik, 1 782-1862 121

Westman, Carl, 1866- 19, 230-232

Wetlesen, Wilhelm, 1871- 604

Wexelsen, Christian, 1830- 1883 472

Wickenberg, Per Gabriel, 1812-1846 123-124

Wilhelmson, Carl, 1866- 17, 197-198

Wilhjelm, Johs., 1868- 356

Willumsen, Jens Ferdinand, 1863-. .23,24,25,26,377-380,382, 416

Winge, Marten Eskil, 1825-1896 138

Wold-Torne, Oluf, 1867-1919 31, 597, 600-603

Zacho, Christian, 1 843-1 91 3 317, 318

Zahrtmann, Kristian, 1843-1917

23, 31, 335-341, 349, 364, 386, 575, 597, 600, 603, 611

Zetterwall, Helgo, 1 831-1907 223

Zorn, Anders Leonard, 1860-1920 17, 176, 188-195

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